


(don't) delete the kisses

by spacecuppa (EmmaLikesTheInternet)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, Dragons, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Gryffindor Keith, Humor, Keith needs a nap, Klance Hogwarts AU, M/M, Quidditch, Slytherin Pride, and they're RIVALS, but they dont know it yet, lowkey family issues, or rivals to lovers, slytherin lance, struggle with house identity, they're both Quidditch captains, voltron hogwarts au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2019-10-04 10:59:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17303381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaLikesTheInternet/pseuds/spacecuppa
Summary: Lance McClain wasn’t like the other Slytherins.For starters, he associated with other houses. Complex social expectations declared it a massive taboo, especially for the image-conscious Slytherin. Lance was haughty in the corridors, shoulders squared in an automatic threat, but Keith had seen that scowl break into a bright and fascinating grin many-a-time on the Quidditch pitch. He had a reputation as a diligent worker, but also a habit of letting sentences run away with him and speaking passionately, with his hands. And, most importantly, he was Muggle-born.Keith is captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and it's no surprise that Lance is hot on his heels. They're supposed to be rivals; but when did anything in Keith's life go as expected? (klance hogwarts au)





	1. what if it's not meant for me?

**Author's Note:**

> i'm super excited to share this!! writing the first chapter has honestly been a delight, it practically wrote itself because i LOVE the harry potter universe.
> 
> this was inspired by the large amount of marcus flint/oliver wood fanfiction i've been reading over christmas, which is now absolutely my favourite niche (guess i have a thing for rival pairings and slytherins being treated as three dimensional characters). so that was what inspired this fic! i hope you enjoy xo
> 
> work title: inspired by the wolf alice song of the same title  
> chapter title: a lyric from the song

Here is where it began.

A crisp November afternoon, the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams lined up on their respective sides of the pitch. Keith is squirming, not just from the uncomfortable pinch of his polished Quidditch boots; the roar of the crowd from the distant stands is making his stomach churn unpleasantly. He’s never seen those stands full, before.

The Gryffindor captain smiles at him kindly. She doesn’t expect much of him, she said so beforehand, it’s his first ever proper match and he’s only a second year and its _really_ rare second years make the team, anyway. So. He just had to focus on not falling off his broom in front of the whole school.

Their captain is stepping forward, now, gripping the hand of the Slytherin captain with a visible ferocity. Keith couldn’t help his own swelling pride, at being on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He’d scanned the list of names, pinned up outside the Great Hall, and rushed straight to the breakfast table to show a begrudging Shiro. Only two second years had made the cut! And he was going to make his house proud!

The other second year is a Slytherin, Lance McClain, a Seeker. Keith recognised him from his Potions class; small for his age, eager and exploding with a certain infectious energy which set him apart from the rest of his hard-mouthed house members. Keith privately thought he was alright, you know, _for a Slytherin_. 

He finds him in the line of green robes across from them, boot scuffing the ground in a nervous tic. Second year Keith had never been great at eye contact- he never really would be great at it in the future, either- but he tries valiantly to catch his fellow student’s eye, offering a half-smile.

His tentative curiosity is instead met by furrowed brows, a tight and sour scowl. From across the pitch, McClain meets him with the most hateful glare poor thirteen-year-old Keith has ever witnessed.

_Okay_ , he thinks, the anxiety beneath his skin giving way to a burning, brimming determination. _If that’s how you want to play it_.

His feet are planted on the ground, still firm from the morning frost, limbs coiled like springs in anticipation of the whistle. And then they kick off, the adrenaline leading him higher and higher, towards the Quaffle and towards the left goal and the sting of the cold wind on his cheeks is furious, is glorious.

Gryffindor win. His teammates are clamouring against him as they exit, their cheers carrying on the Eastern winds. All of a sudden, he’s being hauled up onto somebody’s shoulders, and his face is hurting because he can’t seem to stop _smiling_. He’d done them proud! He’d really done Gryffindor proud!

And it was all thanks to Lance McClain.

-

When McGonagall had taken him aside in a Transfiguration lesson and asked him to captain this year, his reaction wasn’t dissimilar to when he first made the team.

At least he had the self-control not to scream or do a victory dance or anything. He’d thanked her quietly and then walked away in a self-conscious manner, his left leg jumping with the effort not to break into a run.

He could hear McGonagall chuckling at him. Once he’d turned the corner, he gave in, and raced into the Great Hall just as Shiro was pouring his second goblet of pumpkin juice.

“Have you heard?” Nadia, whom he’d gotten to know in third year as a formidable Gryffindor beater, greeted him conversationally. “McClain’s been made captain.”

Keith let the comfortable atmosphere of breakfast wash over himself. The easy chatter of morning was a comfort, each student wrapped up in their own fresh dramas and good news. Here he stood, on the threshold of something great. A new morning, a new start. 

“ _I’ve_ been made captain,” he said breathlessly.

“Oh!” Her face moulded into a grin. “Nice one, mate.”

“Wait, seriously?” Shiro’s eyes lit up with excitement, before he was leaning across the table to give Keith a big, uncomfortable hug. “Well done, Keith. You deserve it, so much.”

“Aw, this year’s gonna be insane! The two famous rivals, captain of Slytherin and Gryffindor respectively,” Nadia teased.

Keith glanced to the Slytherin table, where Lance sat alone, sipping tea miserably. He wondered what kind of tea he was drinking today. “McClain and I aren’t rivals.”

“He seems to think so,” remarked Shiro unhelpfully.

“Well, I’m saying we’re not. And rivalry is a two way thing, so it’s not a rivalry. But, I suppose a bit of friendly competition won’t do the team any harm.”

“Yeah, friendly competition,” Shiro scoffed, and Keith was reminded of the last time his berating of Matt for being a Slytherin had gotten a little personal. They refused to speak for at least a week after that.

“Speaking of the team.” Nadia was staring at her bowl, stirring the cereal absent-mindedly. “Who’d you reckon should play this year?”

Keith rolled his eyes. “You’re the first one I’m picking, Nadi. Nobody beats the shit out of balls quite like you.”

She beamed. “I do my best.” Pretty much the extent of their friendship was Quidditch; strategizing Quidditch, watching Quidditch, playing Quidditch, complimenting each other’s Quidditch skills. Keith got on with her very well.

Curtis appeared then, indicating breakfast was winding to a close. “Morning all.”

Shiro smiled up at him, sunnily. “Keith’s been made Quidditch captain.”

“Really? Well done, Keith.”

“Thanks,” Keith replied, allowing himself to be proud. Because Shiro was right; he really did deserve this one. All those days and weeks and _years_ of training and losing and swallowing mouthfuls of mud, of pushing his body to the limit, and he’d finally made it. Against all odds.

“You got any idea who the Hufflepuff captain is?” Nadia asked impatiently.

“None. I mean, there’s been a few rumours, but I couldn’t say. Garrett’s a contender, but Kinkade’s really been tightening up his technique lately. Either of them would be deserving of the title.”

“McClain’s been made Slytherin captain.” They all turned to look at the Slytherin table. Now that most people had left for their classes, the strict seating rules had been overlooked, and two other students were perched around the newest Slytherin captain. Keith recognised one as Matt Holt’s younger sister, a small and skilful Ravenclaw Chaser. The other was the Hufflepuff Keeper. It really was no surprise McClain associated with Quidditch people, too.

He seemed happier, now, as if he thrived in the presence of others. He was gesturing with a buttery slice of toast, his mug of tea discarded, his eyes bright with excitement. _It really was a shame_ , Keith thought. _If only he wasn’t such a massive dickhead all the time_.

Lance McClain wasn’t like the other Slytherins. He was ruthless and disciplined and breakneck-ambitious, maybe; Keith didn’t doubt he was a Slytherin to the core; but he seemed to shy away from certain expectations that lingered around the rival house. Keith sometimes wondered how he’d manage to maintain enough reputation to control a Quidditch team.

For starters, he associated with other houses. Complex social expectations declared it a massive taboo, especially for the image-conscious Slytherin. Lance was haughty in the corridors, shoulders squared in an automatic threat, but Keith had seen that scowl break into a bright and fascinating grin many-a-time on the Quidditch pitch. He had a reputation as a diligent worker, but also a habit of letting sentences run away with him and speaking passionately, with his hands. And, most importantly, he was Muggle-born.

Keith didn’t care; of course he didn’t care about stuff like that. But it really wasn’t surprising none of the other Slytherins sat with him, because they did care. And it was enough for Keith to sometimes wonder if there was more to the infuriating boy, each time he bumped him in the corridor or hurled names at him in class.

“I wonder who’ll captain Ravenclaw, then.” Keith snapped his eyes back to Nadia, feeling guilty, for some reason, although _he hadn’t been doing anything wrong_. “That’s a tricky one, actually.”

“It better not be another sixth year,” Shiro joked. “Your year’s a little too talented for my tastes.”

“We’ll do our best to lose the Cup, then, Master Shirogane,” said Nadia. “Anyway, I must dash. Double Charms. You better be praying for me.” And she was off without another word.

“Ugh. I came all the way over here to walk with her, and she doesn’t even wait for me.” Curtis left in pursuit of her, throwing a wave over his shoulder, and Keith could see Shiro smother a fond grin with his goblet. 

“Ask him out,” Keith said.

“No! We haven’t even been back a week. I’m content to pine a little.”

“Ask him out before he remembers what a hopeless idiot you are.”

“Drop it, Keith,” said Shiro from behind his copy of the Daily Prophet, so Keith did.

“You look like a Grandad. Have you got a free? Are you going to the library?”

“Why do you always bully me the minute we’re alone?” Shiro’s tone was light, though. “And yeah, I’m spending my free in the library. Don’t try to talk me into going anywhere, you’ll understand when you start NEWTs.”

“Boring,” Keith replied. He’d wanted to go out into the practice pitch, fly for the first time as Gryffindor captain. But he didn’t much fancy flying alone.

Silence fell between the two of them, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds for Shiro to sense something wrong. “What’s the matter, Keith?”

“What if I’m not good enough? As captain, I mean. I’m just, I’m not a born leader, and what if I start getting angry and taking it out on my team? Because, you remember, I used to-“

“Keith,” Shiro interrupted, his voice gentle but firm. “Stop doubting yourself. You’ve come a long way, you’re a whole new person. I know you’re not exactly the typical Gryffindor, but you’re the best role model the house could ask for. You know what’s right. And anyway, if ever you’re acting like a wanker, Nadia would happily hit you.”

Keith laughed, his eyes conveying a gratitude that couldn’t quite be put into words. _You’re always there for me_.

“C’mon. I’ll go down to the pitch with you, but only for first period. And I’m bringing work with me.”

“Still boring.” And as they fell into pace with each other, Keith watched Lance leave his own table, body language open in stark contrast to the rest of his house. With the two of them as captains? It was set to be an interesting year.

-

For starters, Keith was having a bad day.

He was barely through his first week of being captain, and already those overly enthusiastic third years who fancied themselves Quidditch experts were interrogating him on plays in the corridor. Nadia had told him it was because he was so distinct-looking; they couldn’t help but recognise him, and he should consider plastic surgery or at least getting a haircut. Keith hadn’t known what plastic surgery was, but he assumed it was an insult.

Rather unhelpfully, Shiro had caught the flu. It wasn’t anything serious, Pomfrey had assured him, but was highly infectious and so Keith was forbidden from seeing him. Nadia and Curtis, both vaccinated recently by a Muggle parent, had been conveying messages and Bertie Bott’s every flavour beans to him. But, he couldn’t help but feel left out. All because the wizarding world refused to get off their high horse and utilise Muggle technology. 

And, with everything that had been going on, organising Quidditch tryouts and the sort, the Potions essay due fifth had completely slipped his mind. So now he was spending his lunchtime scribbling down everything he knew about the Illustrious History of the Love Potion: its Use and Abuse while Nadia nattered in his ear about the Holyhead Harpies.

“Look, it’s pretty revolutionary. An all-female team, right? And most of the big leagues wouldn’t give them the time of the day. But they’re just so damn good that nobody can ignore them, see.”

“Snape’s going to kill me,” Keith remarked. Nadia interpreted it as encouragement, launching into another lecture about the barriers faced by the first female Quidditch players.

“-and so she dressed as a man. Faked some documents, fooled everyone. Then, at the 1948 World Cup-“

“Keith. Nadia. Why the fuck are you in the library?” Matt collapsed in the seat opposite them, puffing from the exertion of his search. His green tie was wonky, his robes missing.

“Potions. I’m dead,” Keith mouthed, his eyes pleading for help.

“Oh. Um, Madam Pomfrey sent me. Shiro’s gone into a fever, but she’s busy ‘cos after our Quidditch tryouts yesterday the hospital wing’s almost full, and she’s expecting more what with Gryffindor this evening, and I can’t sit with him ‘cos I’m not vaccinated, and you’ve got to do tryouts, and where’s Curtis?”

Keith swore. “He’s on a field trip. Something about Antipodean Opaleyes and the black market. I can’t sit with him anyway, I’m not vaccinated, and I’ll owl Curtis but he won’t make it back ‘til tomorrow.”

“I’ll look after him. Don’t worry,” Nadia said firmly.

“What about tryouts?” Matt’s mouth gaped.

“I don’t know. Look, Keith, it’s your call, but I’m not going to ask you to reschedule. So just- try out everyone else as normal. I’ll live.”

It took Keith a moment to figure out what she was implying. “Nadia! I only asked you along for emotional support. Unless, like, a whole bunch of second years turn out to secretly be on the England team, we _need_ you. Like, desperately.”

“Thanks,” she said quietly, because Nadia didn’t like expressing gratitude. “I’ll look after him for you.”

“C’mon, Kogane. I’ll be your emotional support,” Matt teased, but Keith was definitely holding him to that promise.

“I’ve just got to drop this off with Snape, and tell him I won’t be in class ‘cos tryouts. See you later, Nadi.”

Matt sauntered beside him, peeking at his scribbled essay. 

“Wow,” he mused, after skimming the barely legible ink. “You really are dead, huh.”

-

After barely escaping Snape’s wrath, Keith was standing in front of a mass of red-scarved, wide-eyed students and feeling very harrowed indeed. The wind was making a valiant attempt to drown out his voice, and drizzle blurred out much of the landscape. He really hoped he didn’t lose any children in the gloom.

“Right, so. My name’s Keith. I have been Gryffindor Seeker since second year, and now I’ve been made captain. Of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Uh…”

Keith was very, very bad at this, and it didn’t help that Matt kept whooping at the end of his sentences, in a very off-putting way. “So, um, welcome. Any questions?”

“How old are you?” asked a particularly short second year.

“Sixteen. That’s not- I meant questions about Quidditch.”

“Who’s that boy in the stands? Is he a member of the Gryffindor team?” Another second year pointed to Matt, accusatory. 

“No, he’s in Slytherin. He’s just my friend.”

“You’re friends with a Slytherin?”

“Well. Maybe just mutual friends,” Keith answered, provoking an injured ‘Hey!’ from the stands.

“Are we actually going to be playing Quidditch for the tryouts?” One of the more familiar third years, a prodigal Keeper, asked sarcastically.

“I was getting to that,” Keith grunted. He could feel a headache coming on.

Eventually, he managed to get them all up in the air. They went through some simple drills, tossing Quaffles, before specialising into groups to examine their individual skillsets. Once Keith was up in the air again, he felt slightly more at ease; this is why he’d been appointed captain. Not status or management or leadership, but messing about on a broom. Still, the yelling of wayward, repressed teenagers _really_ did his head in.

They were halfway through the drills. He noticed Matt’s reaction before he noticed the trouble itself.

The boy paused in his yells of encouragement and questionable commentary, body stiffening, jaw slacking. Even from his position in the sky, Keith could tell something was up, and his gaze followed Matt’s to see-

Oh fuck, Keith thought.

Marching toward his innocent tryouts was a familiar line of dark green Quidditch robes, flanking no other than _Lance McClain_.

“Everyone continue flying!” he called absently, directing his broomstick downwards before he could second guess himself.

“Hi, Kogane. Nice haircut. You a fan of that Irish Chaser, then?” McClain’s voice was filled with a smooth mockery, a smarming façade that made Keith’s eyes narrow with contempt.

“What. Are you on about. McClain.”

“Not a fan of Irish Quidditch, are we?” Keith gave him the side-eye, and the Slytherin became increasingly agitated at nobody understanding his joke. “You know, the Irish Chaser. His name is Mullet? Like your hair?”

“I know the Irish player, dickhead,” Keith said. (He didn’t.) “It’s just not a funny joke. Anyway, I don’t have a mullet, it just kind of- grows like that.”

“You so do have a mullet.” Lance was acting like a child. He was strutting, showing off for the rest of the team, teasing Keith like they were second years again.

Keith scanned the team behind Lance, seeing some familiarly grouchy faces. That burly third-year Chaser, who’d once tossed Keith off his broom, some sour-faced twin girls, Beater and Keeper respectively, that Chaser, Griffin, who sat next to Lance in Potions… “Shouldn’t you be in Potions?”

“Ooh, he knows your timetable, McClain. Think we’ve got an admirer,” the Chaser in question snickered to himself. Lance’s mouth hardened.

“Griffin, we’ve shared a Potions class for six years.”

Lance rolled his eyes, clutching a scrap of parchment. “Professor Snape kindly excused us from all of our classes, to have our first ever practice as a team. Look, the little ones are dead excited to have made the cut!” Keith followed Lance’s gesture to where the ‘little ones’ were cracking their knuckles and sizing him up.

“That’s favouritism. Also, you can’t use the pitch. Gryffindor tryouts ‘til four.”

Lance puffed up his chest, his note from Snape held in a proud fist. “Yeah? Well unfortunately the practice timetable has gone mysteriously missing. We took it upon ourselves to make a new one, and _we are practicing now_.”

A slight kerfuffle behind him made Keith turn. He’d been so hyperfocused on Lance that he hadn’t noticed all the Gryffindors halt their drills and back him up, their eyes all trained on him. Something about their tentative scrutiny and his own ignorance and this _shit_ weather made him want to climb out of his own skin.

“Hey. Lance. Back down, alright, mate?” Matt was approaching the team, arms raised in surrender. “Keith needs to finish up. We need a Gryffindor team, after all, right?”

Lance’s mask of control seemed to waver, if only for a second, before it settled on an expression of determined cruelty. “Yeah? Well why don’t we do you a favour and pick the team out for you?”

To Keith’s utter horror, Lance McClain, with Griffin on his heels, began to skulk around all the kids, isolating all those not good enough for the team. The rest of the Slytherins were snickering along, and Keith could feel his pulse in his head, beating a thick and painful drum, his throat closing up at the sight of Matt desperately tugging on Lance’s arm, fists clenching at one rejected second-year’s quiet sniffles…

“And where’s Rizavi? Wouldn’t mind her re-joining the team, if I may say so. Kogane, could you ask her if she’s a lesbian? If not, I always like a woman who knows her way around balls, if you get my-“

And that was it. Keith felt himself lapse back into an old state, a state familiar to those days of Lance’s crude jokes and tactless jeers. No, he’d always seen straight through Lance, and he’d spend so long trying to keep his record shiny; but he’d put up with this shit for too long, now. Six whole years, in fact, of being the bigger person or whatever such bullshit.

Lunging forward with a fully-formed fist, Keith Kogane broke his nose with a clean snap.

Blood was spurting and someone was yelling and Keith was stumbling, back, his head pulsating with urgency. “Follow Matt back to your classes,” he could hear himself saying, although only distantly aware of the movement of his lips. He thought he was probably crying, but it may have been the droplets which clustered in his thick hair. He ran and ran and ran until the pitch was out of sight and the spots of blood on his right hand had been washed away with rain. And then he threw up into a bush.

-

The incident at tryouts, regrettably, was only the beginning of Keith’s woes.

The next incident happened at breakfast. Matt, blatantly ignoring the rules, had sat down at the Gryffindor table, and was relaying the events of yesterday to Nadia, while Keith cringed over a piping hot coffee.

“And Keith was all reared up, y’know, like a big cat ready to pounce! All the kids were sobbing, one had passed out, and he just kept getting angrier and angrier…”

Keith tuned out to Matt’s voice, instead letting the senseless babble of the Great Hall wash over him. It really was his favourite white noise. Maybe some of them were talking about him.

He let his gaze slip over to where Lance was nursing a goblet, the usual cuppa nowhere to be seen. His nose was bandaged up, and Keith had to stifle a giggle at his comically indignant expression as he whined to the sympathetic Hufflepuff boy beside him.

Keith _really, really_ was trying to feel bad about his actions, but the thing was- he just couldn’t muster the slightest amount of guilt. Lance had 100% deserved it. And maybe that wasn’t the best attitude to take when McGonagall inevitably punished him and he had to beg for his position on the team, let alone as captain, but-

Keith groaned. Maybe Lance was a cock who had had it all coming, but he’d well and truly fucked it up this time.

“Look at him now, still fuming, still reeling from the fight! What a hero. Truly defending his house’s honour-“

“Matt, have you ever considered taking up commentating?” Nadia asked, serious.

“Defending his lady’s honour-“

“Don’t encourage him,” Keith said. “Matt, Nadia’s not my lady.”

“Nadia’s nobody’s lady,” she said, firmly. “And can defend her own honour, too, thank you very much.”

Matt frowned. “Wait, seriously? There’s nothing going on between you?”

“Ew. I’m gay.” Matt’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline, which made Keith immediately regret telling him. “And you can’t defend your honour if you’re off tending to Shiro in the hospital wing.”

“Whatever. Thank you for punching him, though. I totally could’ve done it myself, but thanks anyway.”

Keith groaned, faceplanting into the oak table. “I fucked up, didn’t I?” The lack of a response answered his question well enough. Nadia was patting his hair gingerly. “Shiro’s going to kill me the moment he can stand without feeling woozy.”

“Yeah, mate, he absolutely is,” Matt remarked. “Hey look! The post’s arrived!”

Keith didn’t even bother to look up, until the vicious beak of his mother’s owl started needling his scalp. “I’m up, Mum, I’m already up…wait, what the-“

He shot upwards, Matt and Nadia looking entirely as confused as he felt. Sure enough, inquisitive eyes blinking back at him- his mother’s owl. Heart in mouth, he scrambled for the package in his claws, searching desperately for an attached note. And there it was, a red envelope sealed with none other than her crest, the wax crisp as he broke it, the envelope tearing beneath his shaky hands…

Do not disclose who this package is from, or any information relayed in this letter. It is imperative you open the package in a place of utmost secrecy and reveal to no-one the contents. Further instructions within.  
Accept my apologies for this inconvenience.  
I love you, Keith.

Keith didn’t need a signature to know who it was from.

“Good girl. Rest, now, in the owlery. I’ll drop by with some treats.” He traced a finger over the tawny plume of his mother’s owl, before the owl disappeared back into the flurry. He couldn’t quite explain the distant ache in his chest. He felt empty.

“Anything interesting? I don’t recognise that owl.” Nadia was looking at him curiously.

“What? Nah, I’ll just open it later. New owl, apparently.” She didn’t seem to buy his floundering, but that was a problem for future Keith. “So, Matt, how about that commentating career?”

-

Keith had a very big problem.

This was not a problem to be taken lightly. It wasn’t like, oh, I forgot about the Charms coursework and now I’ll have to pull an all-nighter with my parchment propped up against my knee in the common room armchair. Not an, I’ve pissed off Shiro and now he’s gone into a blind rage and keeps lecturing innocent passers-by and so I’m hiding in the girl’s loos. Not even an irritating boy with very blue eyes and lean, brown arms is chatting s ahit about my friend and I punched him and now my very newly-acquired Captaincy is at risk.

It was a very big, terrifying, catastrophic problem that wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, and he couldn’t help but curse whichever cruel gods had control of his destiny. At least it wasn’t his fault, this time.

He’d shed his company as discreetly as possible, cast a distracting charm by the doorway to buy himself a brief moment of privacy, and plonked the package on his bed.

He should’ve turned in the package to a teacher, should’ve returned it with his mother’s owl, should’ve shoved it in a cupboard down a dusty back corridor and let someone else deal with it.

But, fingers tearing at the cushioned parcel and through the soft sealing charm, he should’ve known that was never an option. Damn his Gryffindor spirit.

Because, the item that rolled onto his unmade sheets, was unmistakably a dragons’ egg.

“What the fuck?” he murmured, then again, louder this time, “What the fuck?”

How could it possibly be a dragons’ egg? Perhaps it was an elaborate trick, some masterful Transfiguration, but he knew his mother’s handwriting and even her sentence patterns. Maybe he’d inhaled something dodgy Snape had congealing in his office, but no, he was only in there briefly, and everything else had been normal. But otherwise, how could this gently glowing, this smooth, this _enchanting_ object be lying in the sixth year Gryffindor dorm?

“What the fuck?” he said gently, for a third and final time.

Keith tried to ignore it, but the logical voice in his head was growing in volume. It sucked, because this was _exactly the kind of bullshit that Mum would pull off_. She’d disappear for months on end, leave him under the supervision of her sister, and only reply to his letters with occasional vague updates on her hare-brained schemes with the Blade.

Because, yeah, secrecy was of the essence. Keith admired her work, loved her for her bravery and determination and nonconformity. He was almost seventeen, he didn’t _need_ her to write to him asking about how the Quidditch Cup was going or meet him at Kings Cross during Christmas with open arms or catch up in Hogsmeade when she was passing by; but, now and again, it wouldn’t hurt. A little effort wouldn’t hurt.

There was another piece of parchment, tacked to the inside of the parcel. Again, his mother’s handwriting.

_I am sorry to have to pass this immense responsibility onto you, but we have few options. This is the egg of an Antipodean Opaleye dragon. Your aunt acquired it on the black market, shortly before a team shut the place down. She expresse 22d an interest in using the creature as a gift to another pureblood family, infamous for their illegal use of magical creatures in dark art rituals._

_We have no means of smuggling the egg abroad, to its natural habitat. You were the only way of protecting the creature from unimaginable cruelty and abuse, and I’m sure your proficiency for Care of Magical Creatures will guide you. It goes without saying that you must not consult anybody about this egg. Nobody can be trusted._

_Hogwarts is, of course, the safest place on earth. Once you have the opportunity, take the egg to the seventh floor of Hogwarts, and turn left past the suits of troll armour, until you reach the tapestry of Barnabas the barmy. Pass that area three times, and you will find a room cloaked with powerful magic. There is the place you must store the egg._

_Check up on the egg as regularly as possible. It is extremely unlikely the egg will hatch, as it is very young. However, if you see any signs, it is simple to equip the room with the necessary conditions. If this occurs, send word with Hortense (the owl)._

_A contact has been arranged to take the egg off your hands once the Christmas holidays begin. He will meet you in the Hog’s Head an hour before the Hogwarts express departs._

_I will try and be back for Christmas._

_-Krolia_.

“Merlin,” Keith said, exhaling. So, it wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t an illusion. This was all bloody _crazy_ , and for some reason, all he could focus on was the fact his mother had named her owl Hortense.

The egg glowed innocently, an electric blue pulse through its delicate, creamy shell. At first glance, it looked perfectly ordinary, rather like a smooth stone you’d find on a beach. But when you looked closer, it was clear the thing was filled with a tentative, growing magic. Something mysterious, something that didn’t belong in the almost-ordinary boys’ dormitory. It felt like the thing already had eyes, eyes that were quietly judging his incompetence.

“Shut up,” he grumbled, shoving it under his bed amongst the tangle of blankets, which was probably safe enough. He could retrieve it later. “Hortense is such a stupid name.”

“Keeeeith? Hey, Keeeeeeeeeithy? Where are youuuuuuuuuu?!” Keith swore at the telltale mockery of Nadia’s voice.

He opened the door to find the stairs transformed into a slide, in defence of an intruder of the opposite sex, god forbid. Straddling the surface, hands scrabbling at the textured red wallpaper on either side of the staircase, was the legend herself.

Keith forgot himself for a moment, smirking. Nadia had made it her life’s mission to one day make it into the boys’ dorm, defeating all the charms which prevented girls from doing so; not that she particularly desired any Gryffindor male company. More likely, it was due to her downfall of being drawn to stupid challenges like wasps to jam.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Rizavi?” She was grinning up at him proudly, glasses askew.

“Look, I’m getting pretty far. One of these days I’ll make it, y’know.”

Keith smirked. Now that the stairs were transfigured, he had no other way to get to the common but to-

“Oh, I fucking hate you,” Nadia griped as Keith’s body weight bowling down the slide dislodged her position. “Get off. Get off. You’re the worst ever _and_ you’re heavy.”

“I did what had to be done.” Keith rolled off, brushing himself before entering the Gryffindor common room. At this time of day, it was bustling, but he managed to nab a chair by the fireplace before Nadia could steal it. She groaned, sprawling out on the plush rug.

“So, Keith. I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Her eyes were glittering with mischief, which made Keith’s stomach drop. “Who do we have to thank for that mysterious package?”

_Oh fuck_. “Uh, my aunt?” Which wasn’t technically a lie, so.

“And why did you have to open it up in your dorm room? What exactly was inside it?”

Oh, trust Nadia to smell something fishy. She was impossible to fool, and had started learning to read Keith since he was an emotionally stunted third year. 

His mother had said that nobody could be trusted, which was of course the philosophy she lived her life by. But, Keith knew she was wrong. Keith knew he had friends who could support him through what could only be considered an _extremely shitty situation_ , and keep their mouths shut if only out of loyalty. He didn’t have to face this alone!

But this was a crowded common room and Nadia was a bad liar. And, as much as he resented his mum’s militancy, he didn’t want to fuck this up and betray her trust.

So, he said the first thing that stuck onto his incredibly thick skull.

“It’s a dildo.”

Nadia choked. “WHAT?”

“Uh, it’s a dildo.” Peals of laughter were bursting out of her, a hand clasped pointlessly over her mouth. Keith kind of wanted to die. “I didn’t want to tell you.”

“No way.” A shadow of suspicion flitted across her face. “Weirdly shaped, huh.”

“Discreet packaging,” Keith said with a shrug, but her eyebrow raised even higher.

“Very big for a dildo.”

Keith swallowed. “I’m very lonely.”

At this, Nadia was gone. Keith had never seen someone laugh so hard in his entire life, to the point where he would have been worried if his body hadn’t been consumed with such pure humiliation. His mum better be fucking grateful, after all this.

Nadia was now gasping for air, silent laughs shaking her shoulders as she hit the ground in utter mirth. Tears were pricking the corners of her eyes. Keith stood, said impatiently: “Are you finished?”

Nadia’s attempts to speak were pathetic, before she gave up and shook her head.

“If you tell anyone, I will literally murder you. I’m not kidding. I have a knife.” Nadia didn’t dignify his threat with a response, instead moving to hold her belly.

Keith really, really wanted to die. 

“I would stay to make sure you don’t suffocate, but I have a detention with Snape now and also I hate you. So. Bye.”

Keith bit his lip and let Nadia bask in whatever joy his suffering inspired. As he closed the passageway behind him, he looked longingly back at the final shred of dignity he had just left behind.

-

For the next few days, Keith settled into a cosy state of perpetual panic.

The weekend came and went. Visits to the hospital, disappointed glances from a healthier Shiro, thank god, the words of ‘trying harder’ echoing through his brain. Lessons were getting steadily more challenging as they eased into the second week. He barely took any notice.

Paranoia, itching paranoia, led him back to the mysterious room multiple times a day. He’d slam the door open, eyes wild and robes bedraggled, but the egg would always be comfortably where he’d left it. He was sure the thing had taken over his very dreams.

He’d wake up in the dead of the night, heart racing at a million a minute. And, routinely, he’d calm himself into an easy stupor, reassure his beating heart that everything was fine.

Until Wednesday night. When it wasn’t.

It had been an uneasy evening, the brink of a storm making Keith edgy. On his calendar, the date was earmarked as a new moon, and the restless magic projected by celestial being had infected even Keith.

He gulped in mouthfuls of humid air, bedsheets unbearably sticky. The clock beside his bed told him it was just shy of midnight. He had no chance of sleeping tonight.

His mind was puzzling through the events of the day, combing through each event out of habit. Had the egg been a different shade this morning? It had seemed brighter than normal. He’d seen some portraits whispering as he passed them on the seventh floor, for the fourth time that day. Could they tell anyone? Who could they tell?

It was mere coincidence that he happened upon something stored in the very dustiest corner of his brain. An article he’d read, some while back, doing extra reading for his Care of Magical Creatures class. Some new theory that experts in dragon reserves in New Zealand had been developing, linked to an increased activity of Antipodean Opaleyes during a new moon and-

_Oh fuck,_ thought Keith, forcing his heavy eyes open. So maybe he should’ve trusted his gut.

It took him longer than usual to find the room where the egg was kept, the castle seeming to lead him down strange pathways. Everything about the velvety night felt _wrong_ , the shadows pressing tightly to his body as he emerged, wild-eyed, by a thankfully familiar tapestry.

He’d figured out the room’s peculiar rules within the first day or so. It was mere habit now.

_I need to find my hiding place. I need to find my hiding place. I need to find my hiding place-_

As if sensing his urgency, the wall swung open with a heavy groan. He slipped in, hastily sealing it behind himself, and descended into the gloom.

Keith knew he wasn’t the only student in Hogwarts with something to hide; he could’ve guessed that easily. But before he found this room, never had he comprehended the volume of such secrecy.

Specifically, a volume of artefacts, junk, and precious keepsakes that stretched further than he could see. Overflowing shelves stood to dizzying heights, piled with all manner of obscure and bizarre paraphernalia; each shelf of dusty, fading objects that intertwined over rows in nonsensical patterns until they disappeared from sight. Each item seemed to echo with a lost voice, their mysterious tales empty now. How had each owner found this place, why had they needed it so desperately? What forgotten power is within a hidden object?

It was certainly the most fantastic place Keith had ever set foot in.

But he hadn’t time to lend an ear to the stories that called out to him. On his left, two shelves down. There he had wrapped it, gentle and snug, in a bundle of blankets he’d stolen from the dorm. And there it sat, apparently unchanged before he began to unwrap it, slowly, as if the thing cocooned within layers of quilts and eggshell would startle at any sudden movements…

“ARGH!” His yelp of surprise rung out in the silence. So much for caution, he thought, as he flinched away from the icy veins of blue that were spreading along the surface of the egg.

This was not good. He sprung towards the door, as if launched from a jack-in-the-box. This was very very not good. At this point, his body was most certainly working on autopilot, one hand clutching the bundle to his chest like a child, the other fumbling for the hidden handle. This was the worst possible thing that could happen right now, and this stress was probably very bad for his heart. He burst into the corridor, gasping. This situation could not possibly get any worse.

_I need a place to hatch an Antipodean Opaleye egg. I need a place to hatch an Antipodean Opaleye egg. I need-_

“What’s that you’ve got?” A shadow darkened the spot of carpet he was staring at, and Keith felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. 

It just did get worse. “Nothing. You saw nothing. I wasn’t here,” he attempted, his right hand frantically searching for his wand. He wasn’t half bad at confusion charms, if he could just cast a few tricky spells he could pass off any allegations as a midnight madness…

But, he realised with a creeping horror, he didn’t have his wand. In all his haste, he’d left it in his dorm. 

“Is that a dragon’s egg?” Cornered with no wand and a very illegal dragon’s egg, in a suspicious corridor in a magic school he was most definitely about to be expelled from, Keith had no choice but to meet the wide eyes of Lance McClain.

“What the fuck are you doing here, McClain?” he exclaimed, voice abject with horror.

“I don’t think you’re in a position to be answering questions here, _Keith_.” Keith wanted to wipe that smirk right off his fucking face.

Keith lowered his voice, jutting his jaw in response to Lance’s mockery. “I’m trained in martial arts. I will literally kick you in the throat, I don’t even care. I will kick you in the fucking throat.”

The Slytherin boy let the smirk spread across his face, materialising into an easy grin. “Alright, alright. I followed you from the dungeons, when you were sneaking past.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?” Keith whisper-yelled, dangerously frantic. “What possible reason could you have to follow someone around at midnight? Did it ever occur to your tiny little brain, _Lance_ , that if people are sneaking around at midnight they maybe _don’t want to be followed?_ ”

Lance’s face fell, dropping like a mask. Behind it, he looked strung-out and weary beyond belief. If Keith had any more capacity to be surprised, he might’ve been taken aback by the look of utter defeat on the boy’s face, like some inner defence had finally cracked and spilled out the truth. “Okay, okay. If you really must know, I was trying to apologise to you.”

“Oh. You don’t have to apologise to me.” Keith became suddenly conscious that you shouldn’t speak so kindly to rivals who follow you around and snoop in your affairs. “I meant to say that meaner. You don’t have to apologise to me, you thick-skulled troll, but you do have to apologise to literally everyone else.”

Lance sighed, fingers dancing around the splint across the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Maybe I don’t mean apologise to you, specifically. You did break my nose, after all-“

“Hope you’re not expecting an apology back from me, McClain. You were straight up yelling abuse at children, and then you insulted Nadia, who would like you to know she is bisexual and very available. You had that coming and I only regret that people had to see it.”

“Right, okay, I was just getting to that part. You broke my nose, ruining my perfectly symmetrical face, which I definitely deserved for being shitty to all your precious little Gryffindors, or whatever.” Lance looked sullen, in typical Slytherin fashion. “And now Hunk is forcing me to write apology letters.”

Keith barked out a laugh. “Yeah. Of course. Excuse me for thinking you wanted to apologise out of the goodness of your heart.”

Stalking away from the crumpled-looking boy, Keith willed the door to open, completing the final step. _I need a place to hatch an Antipodean Opaleye egg. Consequences be damned_. A brand new door appeared, ornate and intricate and unusual, but Keith didn’t look twice before trying to slam the door in Lance’s face.

“Hey!” Lance had wriggled an arm through, blocking the door from closing. “Hey! That’s not what I meant, I’m sorry. I know I don’t come across as much of a Slytherin, right now, but I really do feel bad.”

“If you feel bad, turn around, go back to your dormitory, and never speak of this to anyone. You owe that to my team, at least,” Keith grunted, hoping the boy had some hidden scrap of honour somewhere within him. But he’d managed to wedge his right shoulder in, and slipped the rest of his body through the gap. _Curse his lithe, tanned limbs and narrow, pretty waist_ , thought Keith.

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

Keith growled in frustration. “Look. Go back to your dorm right now, and I’ll sort it all out. I’ll help support the kids, I’ll write apology letters on your behalf, and I’ll even make sure nobody from Gryffindor gives you trouble again. Just go back to your dorm, and never breathe a word of this to anyone.”

But Lance merely stepped further into the room, taking Keith’s words as a challenge. As he walked into the light, his face was illuminated with the flickering of flame reflected off the cool blue marble of the walls. It was otherworldly, it was fascinating; ghastly shadows puppeted by the flickering light, Lance’s sharp features their midnight playground.

“Fucking Gryffindors. Look, I don’t know why I have to explain this again, but you’re in no position to try and lord over me like that. I’m not bargaining with you. So why don’t you explain to me what exactly is going on, and then maybe I’ll reconsider?” That smirk again, that damned smirk. Keith didn’t have _time_ for this, for his smirk to burst into the room and mess up all his plans, which were disastrous enough to begin with, anyway…

But time was running out. So, Keith made a decision.

“This is an Opaleye egg. I was given it to protect it from fucking _ritualistic sacrifice_ , by my distant mother who apparently is fairly unbothered if I get expelled from Hogwarts or suffer a tragic stress-related death at the ripe old age of almost-seventeen. It was sent to me under the assumption that it wouldn’t hatch, and I’d just look after it for a term. But apparently my Mum knows fuck-all about dragons, because it is a new moon which prompts increases in Opaleye activity, and those blue veins right here, on the surface of the egg, are indicative of the first stage of hatching. And Opaleyes hatch faster than any dragon in the world.”

He searched the room for what he needed, turning to face the scorching heat of a fireplace in the centre. There, on a hook in the corner. He tossed Lance a pair of heat-resistant gloves. “Stage Two? Incubation.”

Lance was gawking at him, the gloves limp in his grip. Now that he had moved closer, the light across his face was now a warm, comforting orange. “Are you serious?”

“Hold,” said Keith, offering him the egg. He scrambled to pull his gloves on, then accepted the egg, cradling it with a gentleness, a care that was shockingly different from every assumption Keith had ever made about the boy. In turn, Keith pulled his own gloves on, then rolled up the sleeves of his already drenched pyjamas.

“Right, you can gave it back to me now. Just stand by and I’ll tell you when I need you.” As it happened, a second pair of hands would come in handy. Keith brought the egg towards the fireplace, kneeling to hold it at the heart of the flames. It seemed to settle in his hands, the blue veins across its surface beginning to glow brighter and brighter as a soft hum filled the air.

Keith cocked his head to address Lance, not taking his eyes off the egg. “I need you on standby, because we have to regulate the heat of this thing. If it gets too hot, it’ll leap right out of my hands and become scrambled egg, so help me hold it in the fire.”

Obediently, Lance kneeled next to Keith, gloved hands wrapping around the egg but never touching his own. Forgetting himself for a moment, Keith looked at Lance. He looked stupid, with his sweaty brow and massive split and grimace of determination. But there was something else about him. Now, his face danced under the strange glow of the creature’s magic, his eyes fixated on the egg with something more than just awe. It was a gleeful determination, a focused delight at the neverending beauty and bizarreness of life.

Shit. They were about to bring life into the world.

On cue, the egg began to emit a higher, shrieking sound. Keith swore as it vibrated violently, the two of them straining to tug it higher up where it could cool off for a minute or so. And then the cycle would restart.

They didn’t speak as they worked. It was tedious but worthwhile going; Lance protecting the egg with a great respect, Keith trying to avoid noticing the intensity within his eyes. Time seemed to pass strangely in this place, but Keith estimated it was a good hour before a telltale CRACK echoed through the room.

“It’s hatching it’s hatching it’s hatching!” Keith gasped, voice croaking with effort. Without prompting, Lance helped guide the egg to a nest of various metals and stones in the corner of the room, where all they could do was discard their gloves, stand back and watch the final phase, just in time.

Cracks grew across the shell, where the veins had once been. Beside him, Lance was quivering with excitement. Somewhere within that egg, a little creature could be heard, valiantly tapping its way out of the shell. The two of them stood, listening, awe-struck, to the sweet little pattern of ‘tap-tap, crack, tap-tap crack’, until the final barrier gave way and the shell was falling open and inside-

Keith wanted to cry. It- he- was the tiniest thing Keith had seen in all of his life. The baby dragon crawled with all of its might from the remnants of its egg, scales slick and glistening in the light of the fire. His hide seemed to glow like a precious jewel, bright with a thousand enchanting colours; every shade of blue, twisting with green and extending to translucent wings, a hint of purple at one end of the spectrum and even a barely visible black around a tiny, toothless muzzle. His scales were soft with the vulnerability of a newborn, a whip-like tail whisking the ground. And of course, his eyes were as iridescent and smooth as an opal. He was beautiful, he was majestic, he was- aiming a burst of flame right in their direction.

“Move!” yelled Keith, thankful for Lance’s quick Quidditch reflexes. The flame dampened harmlessly on the wall behind them. Good old scorch-proof marble.

The little creature released a hiccup of fire from the effort of trying to kill them. “Oh, isn’t she precious!” exclaimed Lance, leaning towards the infant.

“He, actually. See those markings on his head?”

“Oh.” Lance looked embarrassed. “I had a gut feeling it’d be a girl.”

They both watched, entranced, as the creature snuffled around in its nest. Keith held his breath, hoping he would settle. After a great deal of investigating, the dragon turned in a circle to get comfortable once, twice, thrice…and curled up like a dog.

Without a word, Keith grabbed Lance’s sleeve, and the two of them backed out and closed the door softly behind them. The narrow, dusty corridor felt like a whole other world.

Lance whooped, head leaning on the sealed bit of wall. “We just hatched a motherfucking dragon! Keith, we’re dragon dads!”

Keith flopped on the carpet, giddy with those specific endorphins released when you deliver a baby dragon. Suddenly, his laughter was uncontrollable, ringing out against the stone walls, and Lance was laughing right back, ugly laughing and holding his stomach, and-

Keith had traced his eyes over that face so many times, and normally the associations of those features made his blood boil. Hating Lance was almost a habit, at this point. But in that moment, it was as if all past animosity had dissolved, it was as if the only thing that could’ve ever brought them together was delivering a very illegal dragon on Hogwarts property. Life never let you choose those sort of things.

“A motherfucking dragon.” He let himself breathe for a moment, mouth still quirking with amusement. How had he ended up here? Sweaty and hysterical on the floor?

“Why did you let me _help_ you?” Lance was still giggling, the question rhetorical and amused. Keith was glad because he didn’t know the answer.

“Why did you help me in the first place?” Keith replied, playful. And Lance was staring right at him with a peculiar expression, a wistful one.

“I felt adventurous. Guess you’re a little infectious, Keith Kogane.” And that sentence left Keith reeling, but Lance just turned away and brushed himself off, preparing to leave. “See you tomorrow, then.”

“Wait…” Keith didn’t know the words he wanted to say. It was just hard to make sense of it all, what with how his life had been turned upside down in the space of a few hours. All he really wanted was to pass out in the common room, but there was so much yet to be said.

“I’m not going to tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Some of the life and humour and _adventure_ had drained out of Lance’s voice, leaving behind something toneless and strained. As he prepared to leave, he layered on the quirks that Keith was used to seeing in the corridor; a menacing, confident gait, shoulders back, a twisted mouth, a furrowed brow. Keith could imagine him strutting into the Slytherin common room, shooting that sour look or a mocking insult to anyone who dared question his whereabouts.

The boy was a performer, and he wore his act like a costume.

“Why did you say you weren’t acting like a Slytherin? Beforehand, I mean? It’s just, you know I don’t care about that stuff.” Lance’s eyes filled with uncertainty at the question, and for some reason Keith couldn’t bear it, and he rushed to smooth it over. “Look, I’ll help you write apologies to the children. Come here during lunch hour, we can check on him and sort out a time to meet in the library or something. He’ll be safe for now.”

The two of them looked wistfully at the wall, in which the door had dematerialised. And, meeting each other’s eyes again, Keith was pleased to see the wrinkles in Lance’s skin disappear.

As they parted, the thick embrace of night descending once more, Lance turned to speak over his shoulder. “Thank you, Keith,” he said, and then Keith was alone once more.

-


	2. me and you were meant to be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's life has suddenly become a whole lot more chaotic. Between Nadia's mysterious wanderings, Shiro's personal crises, Quidditch and competition and _the dragon he now is responsible for_ , he thought Lance would be the least of his worries.
> 
> But it's so hard to know where they stand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for how long in the works this chapter was! it was the usual combination of exams, stress, tiredness, and a 5,000 word undergraduate level essay on the feminist subtext of frankenstein.
> 
> it's the final term of school now so i'll have way more time to write. next (and final) chapter will be far quicker.
> 
> i hope you enjoy this!!!! xo

The Great Hall. Evening. Precisely 17 hours since the incident with Lance.

Keith had checked several times on the dragon he was now, uh, _stowing away_ in his place of education. He was doing about as fine as an illegal dragon baby could be; exploring his new home, playing with objects he’d found around the room, trying to singe off Keith’s eyebrows. For the first time, Keith was almost glad he’d opened the package. Without it, he’d never have been able to witness such a beautiful young creature learn about the world, never seen glassy eyes blink open for the first ever time, never fall back in awe as a real life _dragon_ emerged, laughing with the boy beside him-

Without the egg turning up, he would never have thought of Lance as any more than the Slytherin captain.

After extending his offer to meet up during lunchtime, Keith had spent the whole lunch hour in the corridor where Lance had first discovered him. He’d go in every ten minutes, check on the dragon and play with him, but most of his time was spent leaning against the wall with a book in his lap. 

Lance didn’t come, and Keith hated himself for feeling disappointed. 

But, fuck Lance and his unreliable ways. Keith didn’t need him; he could be a single dragon dad, that wasn’t even a problem. And anyway, he didn’t need to keep glancing over his shoulder at the Slytherin table, trying to figure out if Lance was looking sadder today, because he had other things to occupy his attention. For instance, Shiro was back!

He’d been discharged from the hospital a few hours ago, and was now sitting across from Keith, distractedly eating chicken drumsticks. Keith had been anticipating a chiding upon his return, or at least a lingering look of disappointment, but apparently Shiro was too occupied by _other things_ to remember the boy Keith had punched just a few days before.

Specifically, occupied with intense staring at the Hufflepuff table. He would tear a strip of bread, chew slowly, and stare over Keith’s shoulder, transfixed. Keith smothered a laugh.

“Where’s Nadia?” 

Shiro just grunted in response, swallowing.

“He kissed me on the forehead, Keith. What does that mean? I was half-asleep, I barely even remember, but I can’t forget the sensation of his _lips_ on my _forehead_. Was it just, like, a friend thing? You kiss friends on the forehead, right?”

“No,” said Keith, honest.

“Okay, maybe not you. I mean one. One kisses a friend on the forehead. And he’s a Hufflepuff, so he probably kisses loads of boys on the forehead. Oh, I don’t understand!” Shiro threw his head back, groaning.

“Yeah. That’s rough, buddy. Totally.” Shiro was so preoccupied with his romantic dramas, he completely failed to notice when Keith conspicuously tipped a whole roast chicken into his bag. He could’ve kissed Curtis for the perfect diversion. Except, not, because Keith was a fantastic wingman and wasn’t about to steal Shiro’s thunder.

Nadia swanned in just as dessert appeared, a smug look on her face. “Ask him out,” she said as a greeting, patting Shiro’s arm as he sighed mournfully.

“Where’ve you been, then?” Keith asked. Her smirk was making him a little nervous, but then again, everything was making Keith nervous nowadays.

“Around and about.” She tapped her nose and grabbed a yoghurt pot. “Shiro, seriously. Hogsmede next weekend or something.”

“No! I mean, I simply couldn’t ask him out, first of all. How do you even do that?” Shiro was getting increasingly urgent.

“You’d never guess he was a Gryffindor,” Nadia smirked.

“And besides, that’s like only a week. I can’t plan a whole date in a week! Where would he want to go, what would he want to do? How long would we stay for? Who pays for stuff? Should I buy him a gift? I only have, like, three Knuts and a fifty pence coin!”

“Listen to Nadia,” said Keith vaguely, wondering whether dragons liked trifle. He might as well take it, just in case.

“Yeah, listen to Nadia.” This just made Shiro groan again, tugging at his hair. “Hey, Shiro. Don’t look now but I think Curtis is staring at you.”

The three of them immediately looked at Curtis, Keith turning around in his chair for a better view. But, there was a reason he’d chosen the seat opposite Shiro and now that he was facing the other direction, he couldn’t keep his eyes from wondering, just curiously, just incidentally, to the Slytherin table.

Lance was not alone today; beside him was James Griffin, but it didn’t look as if he was interested in talking to his teammate. Instead, he had a thick textbook propped against a steaming jug, and his eyes flicked across the page while he fondled his signature beverage distractedly. His eyes were quick, intelligent, urgent; bright even across the dimly lit room. It was fascinating to watch.

“He’s so cute,” Shiro groaned, and for a strange second Keith thought he was talking about Lance. He laughed, absent-mindedly. 

“You can’t keep on avoiding all the signs, Shiro. Honestly, it’s like the world just keeps pulling you together. Just live a little, for once in your life, ‘cos it’s obvious he likes you back so you might as well follow your gut.” Keith nudged his friend, gently. Endless pining just wouldn’t do.

“Firstly, my gut is telling me to go to my room, curl up in a ball and never leave,” Shiro said. “Secondly, I don’t think that’s very good advice, because when _you_ follow your gut, you end up _punching Lance McClain_.”

“That’s fair.” Shiro was glaring at him, but there was a good-natured flicker in his eyes. 

“Quick, act natural, he’s coming over here,” Nadia whispered furiously, prompting them both to eat their desserts conspicuously.

“Hey, guys.” Curtis was fiddling with the strap of his satchel, his eyes flicking curiously across their faces. Keith discreetly pressed a spoon into Shiro’s hand, who was currently miming ice-cream eating with thin air.

“Hey, Curtis.” Okay, good. Shiro had managed two words without completely breaking down. It was off to a good start.

“Uh, I was wondering if I could steal Shiro.” Curtis smile was a little hesitant, a little hopeful. As terrible as he was at reading subtext, even Keith noticed the heavy implications.

“Absolutely.” Nadia was leaning on her elbows, attempting to look casual.

“Please, take him off our hands.”

“Keep him as long as you need.”

“We didn’t want him anyway.”

“Just help yourself.”

“Use him however you see fit.” Keith yelped as Shiro stamped on his foot. His face was beetroot, and it was a bit difficult not to laugh.

“Okay, uh, great. Shiro?” Curtis finally cast his earnest eyes over to where Shiro was sat, like a deer in headlights. “I mean, you don’t have to.”

“No!” Shiro scrambled to his feet, knocking an empty bowl to the floor in his haste. The four of them watched in dread as it shattered on impact against the stone, making an unfortunate mess second only to the look of utter mortification on Shiro’s face. “I meant, no, I want to. I want to…go, um, with you. Oh, fuck.”

“Don’t worry,” assured Nadia, her urgency transparent. “We’ll fix the bowl.”

“Great. Okay, great.” Curtis motioned his head, and Keith watched the pair walk in tandem, Shiro trying not to trip over his own feet. Nadia was snickering into his sleeve.

“See you later!” Keith yelled gleefully at their retreating figures. Nadia reached out her hand for an automatic high five, and they set about clearing up the broken pieces.

-

The first thing Lance McClain said to him was, “have you sorted out the team yet?”

Needless to say, Keith was a little stunned. He was leaning against the entrance to the dragon room, methodically shredding the chicken with his knife and silently cursing Lance, when the boy in question came tearing round the corner.

“What the hell are you doing here?” At the words, Lance seemed to deflate a little. Keith had learnt to measure his mood by the levels of tension in his body, and normally the boy was exploding with nervous energy, with white-hot intensity. When he got that look in his eyes…it made Keith sad.

He frowned. Why would he be sad for Lance McClain?

“Okay, I just thought…you offered to help me. But. Don’t worry about it.”

Keith groaned, getting to his feet. “I said at lunchtime. I waited for you, and you didn’t show up, so. Excuse me for assuming.”

There was a pause.

“You’re so fucking dramatic,” Lance said, confidence rising to meet Keith’s eyes. “I had work to do, it’s not that deep.”

“Fuck off.” A prickly wave of embarrassment was creeping up to his ears, and it made Keith want to bash the smug Slytherin in front of him. Okay, there was a feeling he was used to.

“I mean, there’s literally a dragon on the other side of that door. Did you really think I’d just wander back to my dorm and forget about it?”

“Fuck off!” Keith repeated, but this time he was fighting off a grin at the _strangeness_ off this situation. He was a Gryffindor, after all. He craved the unexpected, the unlikely, the extraordinary. 

“How do we get in, then? Is there a password?”

Keith haltered. “I don’t…really know.”

“What do you mean you don’t really know?” Lance was looking at him strangely, but it might’ve just been the half-carved roast chicken he was holding.

Keith gave Lance the chicken carcass to hold, while he sheathed his knife and threw his backpack over his shoulder. “My mum was pretty vague in the letter. But, apparently if you just sort of…walk past and repeat to yourself what you need, the right room just appears.”

A look of determination crossed the other boy’s face, and he handed Keith his chicken back. Lance closed his eyes and paced, and on the third turn a door appeared. “ _Nice_!” He exclaimed, and his eyes were filled with a child-like wonderment.

“Innit. Wait, I don’t recognise this door-“

But Lance was opening it and barrelling through into the unknown, and Keith had no real choice but to follow the muffled sound of whooping, stepping through the frame to reveal…

A games room?

And, sure enough, it wasn’t unlike the dim, forgotten room in the basement of his auntie’s mansion. It was a hodgepodge of Muggle and wizard games, shelves in the corners groaning with the weight of a thousand tatty board games. There were a couple of tables, the castle’s characteristic aged oak, on which one a half-finished game of wizard’s chess lay. A dartboard teetered, lopsided, on the far wall, and in the centre stood a great, wobbly snooker table.

“Lance, we need to feed the dragon.”

But Lance wasn’t listening. Instead, he was flitting about the room, transformed into a bundle of energy; of nervous and curious and earnest energy that only belonged to _Lance_. It was what wiggled his arm when he raised it in lessons, what projected his voice across the Great Hall when he’d rant excitedly to his friends, what spurred that firm and resolute _kick_ when the two of them rose up into the sky, opposing sides of the Quidditch pitch. It was- something else.

“You ever played wizard cards?” Lance was waving a pack in front of his face.

Keith rolled his eyes. A set of Gobstones were nudging his trainers. “No. Hurry up, will you?”

“It’s like normal cards, but they come to life and whisper you advice and encouragement and stuff.” He paused, then added sagely, “never trust the Jokers, and I haven’t always had great experiences with twos.”

Keith tried not to scoff, but Lance didn’t respond, too busy moving on to the next item of fascination.

“Oh my god! Snakes and ladders! Christ, are those snakes _moving_?” Lance jabbed a finger at the board at question, a writhing snake snapping at his finger. “Hey, don’t laugh at me. I’m serious, why do wizards feel the need to enchant everything?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Keith said, and Lance was tossing him the finger, and maybe Keith was laughing even harder. 

“Hey, look! It’s Cludeo!” Keith shook himself, pursuing the eager boy.

“What’s that?”

“Uh, it’s like this Muggle game. I used to play it with my sisters, it’s basically a murder mystery game. It’s cool.” Lance was tracing the tatty edge of the box as if something profound was within.

Keith wanted to ask Lance to teach him how to play. He wanted to ask about Lance’s sisters, and why such a thing could make him so suddenly mournful. Instead, he said; “Come on, leave it. We’ll go feed the dragon and you can go back later, or something.”

Lance carefully arranged his features into a half-smile, like a peace offering. He didn’t look back when Keith closed the door, and didn’t offer to help when Keith began to pace the corridor once, twice, thrice.

In fact, the only indication he was anything more than a shade, was when Keith had turned to him with a firm warning of “brace yourself.” Only then did a little bit of fire rekindle behind his eyes. It was that craving for danger, it was the thrill of dark corridors and mysterious, forbidden doors that made Lance look almost like a Gryffindor. Well, under certain lights.

“Let’s do this.” His voice was resolute. It was a promise of wondrous things behind a door.

Keith took a deep breath, and pushed it open.

-

It was a full hour before the two of them got a chance to catch their breath.

To be honest, Keith was extremely grateful Lance was there. Earlier, he’d just propped open the door and emptied all the food he’d stolen into the nearest corner, too wary to approach. But, according to the slightly-charcoaled handbook he’d nicked from the Restricted Section (complete with worryingly specific guides to hatching every type of dragon egg), it was imperative to supervise your Antipodean Opaleye as they ate.

See, Opaleyes were notoriously picky eaters and also prone to choking. Which was fairly worrying information, but he had seemed to have been quite impressed with the soggy cornflakes from this afternoon. An attitude Keith had hoped would extend to the rest of his mealtimes, but apparently he was wrong.

As soon as they shut the door behind them, the little reptile was bounding up to them with a surprising amount of force. Lance knelt down, let the slender snout snuffle at his hair, inspect his face and offer a puff of smoke, before deeming the Slytherin appropriate and retreating to his nest, satisfied.

Lance was cooing. “Shut the fuck up, Lance. He could scorch your entire head off.”

“Really?” Lance’s eyes were trained on the little dragon, who was snapping at his own tail.

“Yeah,” Keith said, rolling his eyes. “It would be an improvement.”

“Whatever. He’s just so _cute_!” Lance flopped onto his stomach, making kissy noises at Keith’s fucking dragon.

And, okay, yeah. His dragon was extremely cute, but Keith wasn’t about to admit that to a _Slytherin_! He knew he was stubborn, and all. He never liked showing emotions, nothing that would make his seem soft. Which was strange because Lance had kind of… _dropped_ the whole tough act, or at least most of the time. Everything about Lance was strange. Everything about Keith’s life was pretty strange, to be honest.

“Right. I don’t know how this is going to work, but, like-“

“Gimme the chicken.” Keith chucked it over, and now Lance was _writhing_ across the ground, just straight up army crawling, a chicken carcass dangling from his hands. His backside was stuck in the air, and Keith pointedly didn’t look at it, because he never ever checked out Slytherin arses. It was a matter of principle.

“Lance, I don’t really think that’s a good idea. He might choke,” Keith warned. 

“Oh shit! Do we need to like, buy baby foods or something? Like, mash up some sweet potato in a little pot?” His eyebrows were pinched in a very serious way, pouting over his shoulder.

Keith was about to respond, but they’d just made a terrible mistake. It was the first rule of all the handbooks he had read, hidden behind bookcases in the library; when in the same room as a dragon, never forget, You Are In The Same Room As A _Dragon_.

Before either of them could blink, the dragon clamped his little jaw on the grisly chicken, trying to pull it free from Lance’s grip. Instinctively, Lance pulled bag, until the two of them were locked in a tug-of-war and Keith wanted to scream with frustration.

“Are you serious? Lance, what do you think you’re doing?”

Between all the struggling, Lance found a moment to glare pointedly over his shoulder. “What does it look like? Trying to stop your dragon from choking.”

“You shouldn’t have given it to him in the first place,” Keith tutted.

“I didn’t _give_ it to him! Do I look thick?”

“You don’t want to know the answer to that question,” Keith fired back, prompting a hearty _fuck off_ in response. “Just let go of the bloody chicken, I’ll try and lure him away from it with the actual food.”

Lance huffed, but let go, leaving the dragon to retreat happily with his prize. Seeing the tiny jaw begin to work away at a wayward bone, Keith began to rummage through his bag more frantically, searching through the chicken strips and cute little trifle pots and loose potatoes and a gravy boat for any kind of morsel that might tempt him away from those dangerously sharp bones.

“How about an apple? You like apples?” Keith approached the dragon’s corner, but he must have guessed that Keith was after his bones as he scrambled in the opposite direction before Keith could take another step. He swore.

Lance seemed to get the memo, assisting in his search rather unhelpfully. “Do dragons like trifle?” he asked mildly.

“How would I know?” Keith snapped.

“Maybe if we just leave it open for him to smell, he’ll come over.” So they placed the pot in a tempting spot a little away from them, and attempted to coax the young creature towards it. Neither of them were conscious of preserving dignity, instead practically lying across the floor and making ridiculous kissing noises, as if trying to attract a cat. 

The dragon, of course, paid no attention, happy to let them lie spread-eagled and make fools of themselves for a good five minutes.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Keith retreated to look back in his bag.

“There’s ash on my trousers,” Lance whined, shaking a disapproving finger at the dragon. “The things I do for you.”

An idea struck Keith. Carefully, he removed the gravy and the scraps of chicken, and began to soak a couple of strips until they were dripping.

“Hey, over here! It’s like what you have, but better!”

Keith chucked some pieces over to the dragon, landing before his nose with a wet slap. For a moment, the little dragon turned his head and Keith felt hopeful; until he let out an abrupt burst of flame and returned to chewing some bones.

Keith groaned in despair, making a lunge towards the dragon’s plaything in a useless attempt to tug it free.

“What are you doing? Come back!” Lance grabbed at the bottom of his untucked shirt, pulling him back towards the entrance. His hand brushed Keith’s back once, twice. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Waste of food,” Keith said, gesturing helplessly to the charcoal remains of his ingenious chicken and gravy.

“Nah, this is a waste of food.” And Lance was gingerly picking up his leaden backpack, nose wrinkled. “Seriously, mate, the gravy leaked and it is _not pretty_.”

“Anything else we can use?”

“Let me have a look.”

He resurfaced with a carrot, an inspiration lighting his eyes. All of a sudden, he was tugging Keith back towards the dragon’s nest with the vegetable raised like a sword.

“I have ventured...across perilous lands…to fulfil the ancient quest…with only the help of my loyal sidekick…”

“I’m not your sidekick,” Keith said, but he found himself laughing. Lance’s hero voice was deep, mocking, but not a half bad impression, altogether. It wouldn’t be surprising if Lance had done this before, had waved his broomstick round like a powerful sword and proclaimed himself a brave knight in his childhood bedroom. He couldn’t help the giggles that were bursting from his seams; Lance was ridiculous.

“Fine. My fair maiden.”

“Shut up!” And Lance was laughing too, his cheeks dusted a faint pink

“We have forever longed to follow our destiny…to find the mysterious cave…and SLAY THE MIGHTY DRAGON!”

With a flourish, he swished the carrot before the dragon’s curious eyes. He had dropped the mauled chicken bones, head cocked at Lance’s antics. At the sudden movement, he let out a pleased chirrup and pounced playfully towards Lance’s arm.

“Oh, great and powerful beast! You are too mighty for me!” Lance laid down the carrot before the dragon’s nose, bowing deeply. “Too long have our species warred. Please accept: a peace offering.”

While he was distracted, Keith grabbed the disgusting leftovers and swiftly chucked them out into the corridor for Filtch to discover later. When he turned around, the dragon was munching happily on a carrot and Lance was on his haunches, looking proud.

“That was…impressive.” The compliment didn’t come easy, not when directed at Lance. The Slytherin captain. But, his beam made it worthwhile.

“Why thank you. I try.” He was breathing a little heavily, and Keith watched the steady rise and fall of his chest for just a moment. 

Keith was suddenly aware of the silence of night-time. As the pause stretched itself achingly long, all that filled the air was the dragon’s noisy eating and the distant groans of the castle as it shifted and settled in the wind. He squirmed. Lance’s eyes were on him, studying.

“Do you have a name?” Lance’s outburst rang out harshly in the stillness. “For the dragon,” he added pointlessly.

“No. Not yet.”

“How about, uh, Kosmo?” Lance scratched his elbow self-consciously. “It’s just, I thought of it earlier. His scales, they remind me of outer space, y’know? When you go up to the astronomy tower on a really clear night, and you can see the stars and the Milky Way and it’s not just white. It’s every colour of the rainbow, out there.”

Keith looked again at the dragon’s scales, the way they winked in the light like starshine. “I like Kosmo,” he said. In his peripheral vision, Lance was smiling.

“Okay. Okay. Kosmo it is, then.” Keith watched as Lance relaxed into a reclining position, elbows propping up his body, eyes settling closed with easy satisfaction.

Hesitantly, so as to not disturb the fragile ground of him and Lance, Keith lowered himself to the other boy’s level. He’d learnt these past few days that the two of them were prone to earthquakes.

Kosmo had retreated to his nest, satisfied. He was snoring, a very gentle rhythm which Keith had now committed to memory simply because it was the cutest sound he’d heard in his almost-seventeen years of life. He slept with his black nose tucked under a paw. Keith craned his neck to watch him for a second; the tiny, tiny creature just radiated _contentment_ , and it made Keith smile so broadly his mouth hurt.

Making Kosmo happy, that was what mattered.

Letting out a sigh, he flopped his head back down. It rolled to face Lance, who had perched himself against the wall and was studying Keith with a furious concentration.

For a moment, Keith could barely breathe under the piercing scrutiny of those eyes. Baby blue, but no semblance of innocence, for Lance’s gaze was sharp and as bright as the sun. He worried his lip between teeth.

Keith startled, not expecting it when Lance walked over, deliberately, and laid his body down right beside Keith. Spread-eagled, fingertips reaching above his head. The two of them lay side-by-side for quite some time, acutely aware of their proxemics; but somehow, in the moment, between the fizzy and forbidden ambiance of the room and the exhaustion that numbed their limbs, nothing could have felt more right than the accidental brush of their socks.

Lance sighed.

“Look at the ceiling,” Keith said quietly. It was still the same room they’d hatched Kosmo in, the marble walls, nesting materials and great fireplace still vital for the fledgling dragon. Yet, they’d never once glanced at the ceiling. 

It was a dome shape, spiralling upwards in a way that couldn’t _possibly_ obey the standard architecture of the seventh floor. The ridges, edged with intricate patterns, raised up into a distant and mythical sky until they blurred into one. It was as unusual as it was beautiful; the imagery seemed to have no discernible theme, just a glorious mayhem of a thousand different gold-gilded, gem-adorned figures.

Keith could spot cherubs and goddesses in the saturation of Renaissance, set off against the melancholy portraits of Romantics. A cave painting was barely discernible, the stick figure reaching for the lipsticked smile of a Pop Art idol. Courtly figures frowned over Egyptian gods, head to toe in gold, and a Mayan figure with many eyes watched over Impressionist ladies in frantic skirts and umbrellas.

“Yeah.”

It was beautiful. Keith turned to Lance excitedly to gauge his reaction, but instead was met by those blue, blue eyes watching him carefully. For the second time.

“You never answered my question,” he said.

“What?” Keith felt his mouth twitch.

“About the Quidditch team.” Lance had looked away now, instead addressing the crowded ceiling as if they were witnesses to the conversation. Something about it made Keith itchingly self-conscious.

“Oh.” It seemed an odd thing to talk about, here; as if sitting side by side and gazing at the ceiling belonged to a whole other, twilight universe; worlds away from the morning sun and grass-stains and runny noses and touching down with wobbly broom-legs.

“’Cos if not, I could help you. Like, when I write the apology letters. It’s fine if not, I suppose you wouldn’t want my opinion after I acted like such a…such a dickhead, to you, to your team, but.” Lance’s face was crumpled, and if Keith hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Lance was holding back tears. “But, I just wanted to offer. Forget it. You wouldn’t want help from a Slytherin, I’d probably try and sabotage you anyway.”

Keith wanted to laugh, but he knew it would make it worse, so he held back. He’d practically forgotten about what Lance had done, what with the preoccupation and bizarre enchantment of the room, and the funniest thing was _he didn’t really care_. Not anymore. 

Once upon a time, holding grudges was a particular talent of Keith’s. But that was back before he learnt to read people like another language, learnt through patience and keen observation that every human was very, _very_ human. As in, they all existed within their own spheres of consciousness and were wrapped up in their own dreams, and made horrible messy mistakes each step of the way.

One of the first lessons he learnt was that you never could know what to expect with people. Over time, he’d found a curious beauty in fluctuation.

He rolled over, his neck too achy from the strain, and they were face to face.

“Lance McClain.” Lance’s limbs were spread carelessly, a strange little picture of freedom, and Keith’s hand inched over to Lance’s open palm. He touched their fingertips together, one by one, and each time they met they _buzzed_ like a live wire. “I never know what to expect from you.”

Lance’s smile inspired a furious joy from somewhere inside. It was the smallest of smiles, but sometimes the smallest of smiles are the most important, and Keith couldn’t help but lean closer, drawn in by those bright, curious eyes.

Lance’s breath panned over his face. It was warm. _Like a dragon_ , Keith thought, vaguely.

“Keith? Can I ask you a question?” A soft, soft voice, for secrets. The beautiful, beautiful night stilled in anticipation, holding its breath, if only for a moment.

All of a sudden, Keith’s gaze seemed to trace a sour wave over Lance’s features. His mouth tightened, his nose wrinkled, and he dropped his eyes, letting them turn instead to the ceiling, unseeing.

“Yes?” prompted Keith, as if that would bring something back. Although, he didn’t know what _something_ was, and it hurt his head to think about it.

“Why didn’t you name the dragon earlier?” Lance asked, strained.

Keith hauled himself up to a sitting position, eyes flickering to the sleeping shape in the corner. “I don’t know. I just figured he’d tell me his name when he was ready.”

Lance barked an incredulous laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why on earth did you think that?”

“Hey, don’t laugh at me!” Keith grumbled. But in reality, when Lance laughed, it restored a little piece of the world. “Oh, fuck off, would you. Don’t give me that look.”

“Do you know _anything_ about, like, animals in general? You know Kosmo can’t speak, right?” Lance was mocking him, and Keith fought off his laughter in a bitter fight for what remained of his dignity.

“If you want my help with sorting those letters, then you better shut up.”

And instantly, Lance’s face was transformed. It was incredible, really, like flipping a switch; he was earnest and hopeful and vulnerable, for that sweet sliver of time.

“You’ll help me?” 

“Sure.” Keith replied, begrudgingly. “Got any spare parchment? Mine’s all covered in gravy.”

“And will you let me help pick the team?” The boy was back-and-fourth, back-and-fourth constantly. Keith never knew if he stood on quicksand or concrete, with Lance; and it made his heart race peculiarly fast.

“Don’t push it,” and the two of them were laughing once more.

-

The next day, Keith was nodding off in double Potions, and Lance kept sending him small smiles.

The morning after, a single, well-groomed owl delivered a flurry of letters to a particular few Gryffindor students. Lance winked at him across the Great Hall.

The day after that, Keith spent his free periods carefully inking the final team list, taking care to make his terrible handwriting legible. Now, he was arguing with the Fat Lady about where to pin it.

“Aw, c’mon, please. It’ll be exciting, and it’s not like I’m actually pinning it _on you_.”

“No! Absolutely not! You could damage my canvas! Why can’t you put it in the Great Hall? Bother the paintings over there, instead.” She frowned at him with utmost disapproval, an expression Keith was quickly becoming familiar with.

“I can’t put it in the Great Hall, because it’s late enough as it is. See that note at the bottom? The first practice is tomorrow morning, before breakfast. If I pin it on the door, everyone will see it tonight.”

“Well, it’s rather your own fault for poor timekeeping,” she sniffed.

“It’s actually not.” Keith pouted slightly, resolving to appeal to her house loyalties. “Our tryouts were interrupted by this awful Slytherin boy. One Lance McClain. Our schedule was subject to pure sabotage, actually.”

“What, the one you go sneaking around with at night?” Keith choked. “See, we portraits know everything. I know all of your secrets, Kevin.”

“Keith.”

“That’s what I said,” she remarked stiffly.

“Look, don’t tell anyone. I’ll find a way to repay you, I promise, just…” Keith looked around warily at the sound of footsteps, just in time to see Shiro turn the corner.

“Alright, Keith? Have you forgotten the password again?” Shiro smiled good-naturedly, his face sunny. Shiro’s cheer had been maintained these past few days; it seemed he had a smile to spare for everyone.

Although Shiro hadn’t told them yet, the pleasant mood had started when Curtis spoke to him after dinner on Monday. Keith wasn’t that dense, despite what his T in History of Magic might suggest. He was just glad that Curtis had finally asked.

“Good afternoon, Head Boy,” said the Fat Lady, fawning. Keith rolled his eyes.

“Afternoon, ma’am.” Shiro sent her a winning smile, his whole Head Boy persona ramped up full. Sometimes it was hard to believe that this was the same man who’d once tried to bungee jump from the Gryffindor tower in fifth year, after an illicit dorm party with the help of two impressionable fourth years. Shiro really had no right acting like such a dad all the time.

“Bumlick,” Keith coughed, muffling his mouth.

“Sorry, what was that?”

Keith simpered. “We were just discussing where the appropriate place to put the team list is. See, I need everyone to be ready by tomorrow morning.”

“I see. Well, it would be rather convenient to display on the Gryffindor door, right? I happen to have a bit of this rather clever Muggle technology which Curtis lent me, called Blu Tack.” Shiro’s eye twinkled at Keith. “It temporarily sticks things to each other. Like a Sticking charm, but multi-surface.”

“How ingenious.” Keith tried valiantly to hold back on the sarcasm, because the Fat Lady seemed to be caving.

“Oh. Well. I didn’t realise you were such good friends with the Head Boy, _Keith_.” Her features arranged themselves into an approving expression, mouth curving up slightly. Keith calmly imagined punching a crater in her canvas.

“Surprising, I know. But if you don’t mind the Head Boy’s _inspired_ solution…”

“Ugh. Fine,” she said, at last.

Shiro smiled again, teeth white and perfect. “How generous of you!”

“Yeah, how generous of you,” Keith echoed, probably more mocking than appropriate. Shiro glared at him, but still chucked the pack of Blu Tack over, which proved sticky and irritating to use.

Keith still wished he’d got to take a hammer and some nails to the Fat Lady, or at least a painful Sticking charm. But, as he stood back and admired his handiwork, it did the job. A small list of names, the letters blotchy and narrow, but neat, a little doodle of a broomstick next to practice times; his own team…

A burning wave of pride spilled over, and he barked out a laugh at the surrealism of it all. When little dreams come true; it’s the best feeling of all. How long until the first people came along and saw their names? How long until their first practice, their first game?

“Squealing Squibblet,” said Keith, looking the Fat Lady dead in the eye.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The password,” Keith remarked.

“That password was from months ago!” She was turning an unpleasant shade of pink.

“My mistake,” Keith grinned, as Shiro dragged them into the peace of the Gryffindor common room.

At this time of day, it was pretty much empty. Only the NEWT students got free periods, so the steady chaos Keith was accustomed to was reduced to a couple of seventh-year girls playing Exploding Snap across a rug.

“You’re such a little shit,” said Shiro, making a beeline towards their normal place; the ugly brown sofa by the fireplace. “Where’s Nadia? I’ve got snacks.”

Keith sprawled himself out across slightly stained cushions. “She said she’s having an illicit meeting up in Divination. Shouldn’t be long. Where are the snacks, then?”

“I need to talk to both of you,” Shiro said stiffly, handing Keith his bag. At this, Keith raised an eyebrow, pausing in his rummaging.

“Oh, okay. I could send over a Patronus?” Keith offered, cautious.

“No, it’s fine. It can wait.” Shiro sat beside Keith, arranging his limbs woodenly. Keith didn’t know what to say, and Shiro’s eyes were looking a little wild, so he reverted to the only topic that was constantly on his mind.

“Anyway. I reckon Gryffindor have a shot at winning the Quidditch Cup this year.”

“Oh yeah?” Shiro prompted, weakly.

“Absolutely. I went to see a bunch of the Wasps’ games over the summer and they have the most amazing flying tactics. I mean, their players are a bit pants, but the captain’s a genius. She said in an interview she chose all the players and their field position in accordance to size, rather than skill. The theory is, if you balance your sides, your plays become more versatile ‘cos it’s easy to switch depending on where the opposing side are positioned. Then your players have less plays to remember, and their plays are _so_ slick, Shiro, you should come along to a game someday-“

Keith breathed a sigh of relief when Nadia burst through the door, bounding towards them. His voice had turned sour from speaking so long, and from Shiro’s expression, he hadn’t heard a word, anyway.

“This is cosy,” she said, hauling Keith’s legs out of the way to sit down.

“Where’ve you been? I’ve got to talk to you both.” Shiro took a deep breath, shifting his body towards the two of them, crossing his legs neatly.

“Secret places. Go ahead, man.”

Shiro pressed his lips together, eyes studying the ground while the corner of his mouth began to curl up hesitantly. “Curtis asked me out.”

A beat of silence passed, before Nadia caught Keith’s eye and they both whooped triumphantly.

“Holy shit! Well done, man!” Nadia jostled Shiro’s knee. He was beaming, eyes still shy. “Why’d it take you so long to tell us?”

“You really had me worried! I thought something had gone wrong! You were so quiet!” Keith felt giddy on a cocktail of relief and happiness.

“Wait, you said yes, right?”

Shiro laughed, finally looking up at them. “Of course I said yes. We’re going to Hogsmeade for lunch on Saturday.”

This provoked another cheer from the two of them, and even the girls in the corner seemed to have caught on and were clapping. Keith lay back slightly; just basking in that honey feeling that everything might turn out alright.

“That’s just perfect. That’s honestly just perfect.” Nadia had that self-satisfied look on her face that made Keith deeply suspicious.

“What have you planned?” Keith said immediately.

“Oh, nothing,” Nadia mused vaguely, shrugging. Keith gave her a hard stare, knowing perfectly well that she’d cave in mere seconds.

Shiro shot Keith a mischievous smirk. “Nothing? You sure about that?”

“Okay fine, I’ll tell you, but only because I don’t want to burst your happy little bubble,” Nadia grumbled. “Don’t tell anyone this. Invitations for Ryan Kinkade’s seventeenth are going out tomorrow. It’s on Saturday evening in Hufflepuff.”

“Wait, I didn’t know you were friends with Kinkade,” Shiro remarked.

“Firstly, Shiro, I’m friends with everyone, so jot that down. And I’ve been going to a study group for Transfiguration, so I got involved with planning it and all. With Ryan, and Ina Liefsdortir, and- get this- James Griffin.”

“Eugh! Disgusting!” Keith said, on reflex.

Nadia rolled her eyes. “He’s alright, actually. Sorry if your rivalries has stopped you from believing Slytherins are human beings.”

Which was funny. If only she knew. “Would you stop going on about my rivalries. I don’t have any rivalries.”

“He’s a good Chaser, too,” she said.

“That’s it! The last straw! I hereby ban everyone from talking to anyone who’s not a Gryffindor,” Keith declared, poking Nadia with his sock.

“Aww,” said Shiro. He’d started cheerfully tucking into a bag of Bertie Botts, so Keith leant over to steal one.

“Okay. You can speak to Gryffindors and Curtis,” Keith said generously.

“This is a dictatorship!” said Nadia. Keith bit into his jellybean, poised to reply, only to discover it was Frogspawn flavour.

Nadia squealed as he let it drop out of his mouth and roll towards her feet. “I mean, karma’s a bitch,” she said.

“Frogspawn,” Keith said, his voice a little strained.

“Wow. Karma’s a _massive_ bitch.”

Keith leant into the saggy sofa, material yielding easily. It stunk of unspecific, suspicious things, but it didn’t matter; because it was the comfiest sofa in the whole common room, and, most importantly, it was _theirs_. Theirs ever since third year, and Keith couldn’t count all the times they’d done this all before. Sat together laughing, as he spit out some disgusting new sweet from Honeydukes. It was easy to get attached.

“Is that where you’ve been buggering off too this whole time?” Keith asked quietly. “I’m sorry, Nadia. I didn’t know you struggled with Transfigurations.”

“That’s okay,” she said, gentle. “Looks like we all keep secrets, sometimes.”

Keith breathed, listening to the deep groans of the sofa’s frame. “Ask me, any time you need help studying or whatever.”

“Keith…” Nadia began, pinching her nose. “I’m going to have to politely decline. The thing is, you’re absolutely shit at theory subjects. I don’t want that rubbing off on me.”

Shiro began to laugh; big, great, gasping laughs into Keith’s shoulder. Nadia’s self-satisfied smirk began to crack as she snorted, unabashed. And so a bubble of that golden feeling, like November sunsets or honey in lemon tea, rose from Keith’s mind. And he knew that everything in the world was right.

-

The owlery was located in the furthest tower. It was dim, the light filtering through barred windows bizarrely tinted blue. As he eased the door open, a flurry of a thousand wide eyes met his own, a surreal and shifting monster in the flaxen autumn dawn.

Keith always ended up writing letters when he was in a good mood. Half of the time, he was too impatient to sit down and do any more than the bare minimum of writing; but, the first early Quidditch practice had gone _so_ well, and he’d returned to a morning of frees and an itching excitement.

It was addressed to his mother, of course. There had been a return address on the back of her note, and while there was a chance of her ever-shifting schedule taking her off elsewhere, it was a risk Keith was willing to take.

He gazed up into the tower of eyes, and it blinked back down at him. It was almost like a monster. It could heave up at any moment and eat him alive.

Yeah, that was probably the sleep deprivation talking. He’d been up with Kosmo and Lance again, playing fetch and looting the kitchen for carrots; not to mention Shiro had bothered him all evening with date plans, meaning he couldn’t even sneak in a quick power nap. Now his muscles ached from practice, too, but it was the very best kind of ache, a Quidditch-delirium happy kind of ache.

His brain was fizzy, like he’d had one too many Butterbeers, and as he clutched the letter in his sweaty hand, it felt momentous. His heart fluttered, a fledgling hope.

“Hortense,” he muttered, recognising her from when he’d snuck in to give her treats. She was small and tawny, the exact kind of pelt his mother would choose to be inconspicuous.

“’Cos that’s all that matters to her. Being inconspicuous,” Keith whispered to Hortense, tying the folded parchment to her claw. Hortense blinked up at him, blank, and Keith felt vaguely embarrassed that he was talking to an owl. And even more embarrassed that he was talking to an owl quite so _bitterly_. 

“Sorry, girl, I just get lonely sometimes. But things are looking up. I’m starting to think that this…this _situation_ isn’t all bad, anyway. And I’m Gryffindor captain, and Curtis finally asked out Shiro, and I’ve even started getting along with _Lance McClain_ , of all people, which is properly mad.”

The owl let out a gentle coo, head cocked to the side. Keith laughed, smoothing the feathers of her head with the side of his thumb.

“You tell Mum that, yeah? I mean, it’s all in the letter. But. You find her and, and you let her know.” His voice was cracking again, and he felt silly he felt ridiculous…

Hortense cooed again, louder this time, like a promise. Then, without even a parting glance, she hurtled out of the window, wings spreading in an assured soar as she darted above the Hogwarts grounds and off into the distant hills.

Keith exhaled, body going limp against the stone wall. “Come back safe,” he whispered as the wind retreated. He wasn’t talking to the owl.

Just then, the faint chatter of some approaching students drifted past. Keith brushed himself off self-consciously. Walking with his head down, he wouldn’t have noticed who it was, either, if he hadn’t glanced back at the flurry of an arriving owl and seen that familiar mousy scruff…

“Hey, McClain!” he yelled out, offering Lance a wide smile. He just couldn’t help his little bubble of cheer within, even if Lance just looked at him blankly in return.

The boy he’d been chatting to was Griffin, the Slytherin Chaser whom Keith despised on the grounds of him being a massive dickhead. But, remembering what Nadia had said, he offered him a hesitant smile. Griffin looked confused, but made an attempt to return it.

“Lance, I’ve been meaning to ask. A bunch of us are going to Hogsmeade this weekend to spy on Curtis and Shiro, do you fancy coming along?” Keith blinked up at Lance, mouth curving up in a tentative offering.

A moment passed. A single moment in which Keith thought Lance might accept, thought that the trembling happiness within him might stick around for once, that compassion might be the answer to his problems.

But then Lance turned to him, scowling, and Keith’s heart plummeted. Because, he knew that face. Lance looked exactly he had on the day they first met; second years on the Quidditch pitch, opposite sides, the boy Keith had tried to smile at but had only responded with that bitter, bitter scowl.

“Sorry, are you asking me on a date?” Lance’s tone was mocking, the sound of it harsh and discordant and wrong. 

Keith scrambled for a defence. “No, I didn’t mean that at all! I asked if you wanted to come with a few of us, we’re planning on-“

“Excuse me for assuming. It’s just, there’s been a few _rumours_ going around about what; or should I say, who; you like to do in your free time.” Lance’s voice was sickly sweet, but his nose was wrinkled in a sneer of disgust.

Keith felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “What rumours?”

Lance shrugged. “I mean, it’s none of my business, really. But I just want to assure you that _I’m not like you_.”

Those last four words, spat between teeth gritted in a snarl, they stung more sharply than any curse Lance could utter. He was powerful, taller than he’d remembered, towering and mocking and mean. And Keith was absolutely nothing.

He could feel the panic within him and so he wallowed in the irony of knowing what would happen. His throat was closing up. And yet, the worst of it wasn’t even the acid words or his mocking tone or his steely expression! It was what Lance radiated; that sickening air of _Slytherin_ , that rotten core which Keith hated more than anything else about the house. 

Lance continued. “I mean, how do you even tell your parents something like that? Bit embarrassing. Wait, I bet you’re Mum’s never even stuck around long enough for you to get the chance to tell her.”

Keith exhaled heavily, raising his eyes to meet Lance’s own. He would’ve done it, if it played out how he expected. 

He would’ve reached up his fist and punched Lance square in the jaw, once, maybe twice. At best, he would’ve avoided McGonagall’s eyes as she kicked him off the team, at worst he would never have met Nadia and Shiro’s disappointed looks as he told them that all those strikes and all those last warnings had finally built up, and he was leaving, leaving Hogwarts forever. Snap his wand in two, he’d never been all too good with it in the first place. It was okay, Keith knew he was a failure. He didn’t mind when it was only a matter of time.

But he did meet Lance’s eyes, and maybe that was the mistake he’d been making all along. Because he was met with a look of such desolate, desperate hopelessness that he was almost bowled over. Lance’s eyes seemed almost mismatched with the rest of his cocksure stance, like the bugging stare of a paralysed man. 

Keith had made a conscious effort to be less of a little shit, on the grounds that people generally don’t deserve any more trouble than they’re dealing with already. Keith had wanted to call his two fists karma, but once the red cloud faded, it just got harder and harder to justify his actions. As time went on, compassion came more and more naturally, but every now and again he was surprised.

He looked at Lance, who must have clocked the threat in his body language and was backing away with a confused-looking Griffin in tow. Why him? Why was it always him?

“You’re not fooling anybody, Kogane. We all know you’re a fuck-up and a freak.”

The door swung shut, and Keith was left alone in a tower of a thousand owls.

He sunk slowly to the ground, feeling redundant, feeling a million other things all at once. He wanted to shake his fist to the sky, to the ceiling of owls, and curse whoever was listening, but the eyes above were watching him in a deeply unsettling way.

They were only owls; Keith wasn’t afraid of owls, he literally had hatched a dragon; but the rippling movement seemed grotesque, the rhythmic beating of wings a threat. He wanted to run, but his limbs were heavy. He wanted to scream with fury.

Instead, he lowered his head, and let silent tears drop into his lap.

-

“Keith! Hey, Keith!”

The yelling came from the other side of the door, muffled by ancient oak and fermented privacy charms. It was faint even with his ear pressed against the wood, and his hand hovering over the crack, as if unsure how it had ended up there.

Keith was doing fine. He could wait out the whole night, here, with Kosmo. Just deal with Lance another day. Roll a slightly mauled tennis ball back and forth and use his backpack as a pillow, and it would all be absolutely fine, if only he could peel himself from the door.

“Keith, I know you’re in there.” Lance voice softened, and Keith subconsciously leaned into it. “I know ‘cos the door won’t open, and I think it, like, doesn’t let you in if someone else is inside. I’m guessing you have to open it from the inside. The magic of this place is mad, I mean, who thought out all these scenarios? Do you think there’s a maximum persons limit, like on a bus?”

Maybe Kosmo was just growing impatient of Keith, but he seemed to shift restlessly at the familiar rise and fall of Lance’s voice.

“Ignore me, I’m just getting side-tracked. Please open the door, mate. I want to talk.” Lance’s fist landed heavy against the wood. Keith flinched.

“You’re not going to, are you? I want to apologise, that’s all. And see Kosmo.”

Was Lance sitting against the door, too? Was he pressing his ear against the surface, listening out for any movement?

With a slight rustling, Lance shifted and was silent for a moment or so. Then, he cleared his throat, and began to…sing? 

“ _Do you want to build a snowman?_ ” Lance sung, voice trembling with hesitation. Keith gaped. 

“ _It doesn’t have to be a snowman…_ ” His voice was growing in confidence, coy and faux-American. Keith didn’t know what to think, how to react. What was going on?

“ _I never see you anymore, come out the door!_ ” he continued, and Keith could hear him fling himself around dramatically. 

The confusion and the randomness ignited something warm within Keith, a laugh tumbling from his lips before he could hold it back. And Lance had heard.

“ _It’s like you’ve gone away…_ ” Lance trailed off, the last of his words barely a breath. Before Keith could really registered what was happening, he was heaving himself to his feet, reaching for the doorknob, and flinging the door open.

In tumbled Lance, a tangle of limbs and robes caught unawares. 

“The fuck was that?” Keith demanded immediately, raising a mocking eyebrow. Lance watched him, cheek pressed against the floor, a hesitant grin spreading as slow and sweet as treacle.

Lance flung out his arms. “We need to stop meeting like this.”

And that was the problem, it was just so hard to squint his eyes and stay mad at Lance’s earnest face and stupid jokes. That had always been the problem.

Keith exhaled, closed his eyes. “You’re not funny,” he said.

“You’re the one laughing.” He eased himself onto his feet, expression unreadable. “And that, as a matter of fact, was an excerpt from Frozen, a rather fantastic little Muggle film about magic. Couldn’t tell you the amount of times I’ve seen it, actually. It’s peak bribery when we need all the kids to settle down, back home, and somehow I’m always lumped with babysitter duty.”

Keith didn’t reply, just watched Lance evenly. He was alive once more with that characteristic restlessness, as if something warm and golden flowed through his brains, made his heart beat.

“You really ought to brush up on your Muggle Studies. You’re the progressive Gryffindor of this room, no?” His face twisted. “Hey, where’s Kosmo?”

Which was a strange thing to say, as his eyes were trained on a spot a little behind Keith, which Keith’s peripheral vision told him was the little dragon in question. He turned to look anyway, and Lance snatched up the distraction.

He moved himself firmly into the room, the gentle click of the door barely discernible. It was almost like he was tactically scanning the space, moving into a defensive position. Keith snorted, crossing his arms.

“I’m always apologising.”

Keith finally turned to look at him. His arms were thrown up in the air, a freeze-frame of drama and forcefulness and artifice. “Yeah.”

He was poised to continue, but faltered. Keith wanted to scream, because, really, how hard was it to at least attempt an apology?

Kosmo, bored by the tennis ball, seemed to sense this lapse and took it as an opportunity to gleefully launch himself towards Lance. He’d taken quite a liking to the other boy these past few days; pawing at trouser legs, exposing his belly for tickles. And, judging from the adoring look in Lance’s eyes as he stooped down to meet the dragon, the affection was entirely reciprocated.

“Kosmo, you traitor,” Keith found himself saying, the corner of his mouth twitching entirely of its own accord. And Lance beamed.

“Have you fed him dinner?” asked Lance.

Keith nodded. “And we’ve played fetch. He’s terrible.”

Kissing the top of Kosmo’s soft head, Lance stood with sudden resolve. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said, and promptly turned as if on a live wire. All Keith could do was follow, shutting the door as softly as possible and watching it fade into the brick.

“We’re high up, right?”

“Seventh floor,” Keith answered automatically.

Beyond the glass windows, the sky was cloudless, and clear shafts of moonlight illuminated their path. At the end of each corridor, a lamp burned, throwing unsteady yellow light against the pearly wash. It was a confusion of shadows, the layers of light and shade casting a kaleidoscope over the carpet. Keith felt the pit of uncertainty grow in his stomach.

“ _Lumos_ ,” Lance muttered, the light of his wand leading them through the heavier shadows. Keith thought that was a decent idea, so copied him.

They walked through so many identical, stretching corridors that Keith could no longer remember where or how they’d started. All he knew was the steady tread of Lance’s trainers, plush against the carpets.

Occasionally, they’d catch sight of some other bobbing light, or hear distant murmurs around the corner. Lance would extinguish their wands, and they’d press against the wall; but nobody ever passed them. Who else wondered the corridors at night? Or was it just the castle’s midnight tricks?

Nothing seemed quite real apart from Lance, his shadow firm before Keith. He led Keith through so many endless hallways that he no longer remembered which direction they’d come from, where they’d even started.

Along an inner passage, through a shimmering door, down a narrow landing, until they faced a rickety spiral of stairs. They were made of wood, the surface splintering and dipping from generations of footfalls.

“Where are we?” 

When Lance answered, he didn’t bother to whisper, instead letting his voice echo against the tight walls. “Servant’s staircase. For the house elves. Because the laws about magic use change for elves all the time, this is like a permanent fixture, it’s like a network that allows the house elves access all over the castle.”

“Oh,” said Keith softly, his breath raising a cloud of dust.

“Disused. For now, that is.” 

Lance moved on to fiddle with a little cubby on the landing, but something in his tone of voice made Keith wary and restless. He glanced over his shoulder to find that the door they’d come through had gone.

“Wait, is this place enchanted?”

“I’d challenge you to find any place in this castle that _isn’t_ ,” said Lance, still absorbed in his task. Keith could hear water being poured. “What kind of tea do you drink?”

Keith stiffened. “I don’t,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Don’t drink tea. Never have.”

“Freak,” Lance said good-naturedly, craning his neck to look at Keith. It was a flat attempt at a joke; Keith doubted Lance even knew that he was repeating the names he’d called him, earlier, in the owlery. Ironic. “I’ll make you the regular, then. God, I feel like a barista.”

He emerged balancing a pair of mugs, and Keith laughed politely at his joke. “These are, like, random stations dotted everywhere. I can usually find them wherever I am. They’ve got snacks and drinks and stuff, straight from the kitchen.”

The space between them hung heavy with everything unsaid. Shrugging, Lance began to scale the stairs.

He seemed to address the damp walls, squeezing sideways up the narrow stairway with a mere glance to check Keith still followed. This place was certainly not designed for humans. “I don’t think students are officially allowed here, but it’s only a matter of time. All big houses have, like, servants’ quarters and secret passageways and dungeons. And it’s almost like the castle wanted me to find it.”

Keith brushed a cobweb from his hair. “Spooky.”

“Yeah. I think Hogwarts comes alive at night, you know. Though it’s plenty scary in the daytime.”

Keith hummed in acknowledgement. Spurred on by an intense determination, Lance stilled momentarily.

“Like the owlery,” he said. His shoulders were stiff, and Keith knew that this was deliberate, was more than just Lance’s avoidant babble.

He was trying to get a reaction out of Keith, he realised. This whole trip had been Lance’s way of ducking around proverbial and literal corners; now, his sharp eyes, barely discernible in the dim, were searching Keith for a laugh or a shrug or any indication of forgiveness.

Instead, Keith trained his eyes on the middle distance, and said nothing.

“You know, the owlery. All those eyes. Watching you.” He turned and continued his ascent, his movements growing frantic. Keith just followed him, winding around the corners and squeezing his mouth tightly.

How could he have the nerve to just toss provocations over his shoulder, act like the whole thing was just another one of his jokes? Drag Keith along on a wild goose chase across the castle?

“I don’t go to the owlery much,” Keith said belatedly, having to swallow a nasty smirk when Lance flinched.

“No?” Lance’s voice was soft. “We’re almost at the top.”

“Okay.” Each puff of his breath crystalized, the air becoming cooler the higher they scaled. Keith was about to point out their dragon’s breath, just like Kosmo’s huffs of smoke, but he just couldn’t bear to bridge the gap between Lance and him. Not yet, not until Lance made an effort.

Lance hummed, his voice strained with the effort to be casual. “I guess you can’t write to your Mum much. Do you have to keep, like, a GPS on her? Orienteering charm? Track her down during the holidays, and that?”

Keith exhaled sharply. When he broke the still air, his voice was sour, escaping in short bursts from his twisted, twisted mouth. “Oh yeah, absolutely. Whenever I need to remind her I’m a fuck-up and a freak.”

That was when they finally emerged, and he was momentarily dazzled. 

The narrow passageway gave way to a room of sprawling stone, cold and smooth and glorious. After breathing in nothing but dust, the crisp air burned gloriously in Keith’s chest. The walls gleamed, interrupted only by a collage of various maps, and generous windows which let the fresh, glittering, proud night pour itself inside. And here, uninterrupted by civilisation, the night sky was painted with constellations. The stars and their uncontrollable, consuming brilliance, the rise and fall of the Milky Way, the sublime beauty of nature.

Keith knew this place, from half-remembered lessons and half-dreamed adventures. The Astronomy Tower. It was like they had climbed up and up in the dim tedium and finally found heaven.

Lance stood in front of the stairway, waiting for Keith to tear his eyes away from the simple majesty of the room. His shoulders were slumped, his mouth mournful. The brisk wind made his hair stick up in tufts.

“Keith, I–” Standing alone, he was a picture of utter defeat. Until, a hesitant hand offered him one of the mugs, steaming furiously. “Take the tea. You’ll get cold.”

Keith circled around the stairwell until he was level with Lance, the two of them opposite each other, face-on, direct. “I’ve been called worse names, Lance,” he said. “The problem was I thought I could trust you.”

Keith thought back to when he’d first mentioned his mother to Lance; an offhand complaint, slipping out from under all that pressure and uncertainty the night Kosmo hatched. A carefully guarded secret that he’d thought nothing of. But that night had been magical in an intangible way, the kind of magic that didn’t come wrapped up in parchment and Latin, but in poems of marvellous adventure and moonlit nights. And Lance had shattered that brief, that enchanting illusion the moment he broke Keith’s trust.

From the bob of Lance’s Adam’s apple, Keith could tell he was choosing his words carefully. He was forcing his thoughts out of his throat, one by one, and it only made the itch beneath Keith’s skin worse.

“It wasn’t a rumour, by the way. I was asking Matt about you and he said that you were gay, and I took his word for it. Nobody else knows.”

“I think a lot of people might be about to know, now that you’ve let it slip to Griffin,” said Keith cruelly. “Who, by the way, I was trying to make amends with, since I found out he’s friends with Nadia.”

Something undiscernible flashed across Lance’s face, that tentative hope slipping away like a wax mask. He withdrew the mug, mouth opening and closing stupidly, and all of a sudden Keith just couldn’t take it anymore.

“Oh, spit it out, for God’s sake!” All the acidic hurt and anger and humiliation welled up in a tidal wave, Keith’s heart fluttering with a pathetic sort of vulnerability that made him want to scream. And so he screamed, let his voice grow in power and bounce off the walls and make Lance _sting_.“Go ahead and say you’re always apologising. Remind me of what a fuck-up you are and make me a cup of tea, take me somewhere- somewhere _beautiful_ , but God forbid you ever actually say you’re sorry for anything!”

“Keith, I’m-“

“I’m not done.” With the burning of his lungs, he had woken up. “How come you are so buoyed by your own ego that you’ve managed to sneak us out here, charm me into following you, _worm_ your way into my life but when it comes down to it you don’t even have the balls to admit when you’ve fucked up? You’re a coward, McClain. But what else could I expect from a Slytherin.”

Keith knew that that would hit the mark, and Lance flinched as if physically hit. But as his face contorted, Keith realised that there was no winning here. No point on reverting to verbal punches, smokes and mirrors. He couldn’t deny that he cared about Lance.

His chest felt scratchy, on the precarious verge of tears.

“All I want,” he breathed. “All I want is for you to leave me alone. Turn around and go.”

With a final shaky breath, he was done. He felt even worse, like the tidal wave had been and gone, reducing him once more to a fragile body in a lonely ruin. Lance was hanging his head, limp and drained and defeated, and the silence between them grew, convulsing like something monstrous.

Lance didn’t move, didn’t motion to go. He just stood there, legs firmly apart, eyes trained evenly on the ground. And finally, that golden energy was gone, reduced to nothing. He was still.

Keith said nothing. All of a sudden, he was painfully aware of this loneliness they shared. Just two boys in a tower, with the colossal night seeping into the gaps between them like ink on watercolour paper.

Lance swallowed, the sound amplified in the stagnant air. Like the whole world was holding its breath, Keith thought, until he realised that it wasn’t the whole world but both of them. Watching each other and not even daring to breathe. More and more suffocating until Lance was exhaling, a short puff, and propelled by the sudden movement set off in wide strides towards the balcony.

He didn’t say anything, but Keith understood the invitation in his body language as he paused by the window. 

Keith followed, because he felt powerless to do anything else.

They stood beside each other for a lingering moment, before Lance set down the two mugs he was holding and gently eased himself onto the ground, his legs dangling through the barrier and above the blackness below. Keith remained standing, watching him gaze at the stars.

Finally, he spoke with a voice that strained with effort. “When I was younger, before fifth year and everything being serious, I used to take acting classes. I asked my mum for them when I came back in the summer, and it was like, this free community summer course and I learnt acting theory and we did shows and stuff.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I don’t know where I’m going with this. But like, I remember when we learnt about Stanislavski’s system, this idea that your character has an objective and a superobjective in every scene which manifests through action. Which I always thought was interesting.”

He was rambling, but now that Keith had calmed down he couldn’t bring himself to feel angry. There was no malice in his words, and cowardice isn’t the worst of sins. 

Keith just stood there and watched his breath crystallise, white against the fuzzy indigo sky. No, there was nothing malicious about Lance, not even when he was spitting out mockeries. He was just confusing. And, in the consuming darkness of the tower, Keith began to consider that all of the avoidance and whims might have been Lance’s attempt at an apology. He was fumbling.

 

Lance’s eyes darted back and forth, meeting his own and then wandering back to the sky above. He was bathed in moonlight, a drawn and uncertain face, as he picked up his mug of tea and began to blow.

“I came to Hogwarts and met all these wizards, you know, big family names. Ancestral homes.” His voice was slow. “My parents are Cuban immigrants, who live above a shop in Tottenham. They have five kids and a living wage, and no relation to magic whatsoever until an owl flew in through our kitchen window.”

“Oh,” said Keith. He sat down beside Lance, crossing his legs. Resigned, now.

“I got on that train knowing nothing about the magical community. And, listen, I’m proud of my family and I always have been, I don’t try to…I don’t like denying who they are and where they come from. I didn’t _know_ that being Muggleborn was a thing, even, I was just telling everybody and thinking nothing of it until I’m racing to the Slytherin table, promises of ambition and achievement and loyalty…and some girl says, _‘I heard he’s a Mudblood’_ , and the room just explodes with whispers. Eleven years old and there’s something _wrong_ with me.”

Up close, Lance looked utterly crumpled. His eyes were glazed.

“And I don’t know how else to explain it except I’ve been overcompensating ever since. There’s no secret anymore, so instead I just pretend and pretend with everyone I come across, in the hope that they’ll leave me be.” 

All of a sudden, Lance was meeting Keith’s eyes, a passionate horror leaking from his eyes and cracking his voice in two. “I don’t know who I am. I’ve just spent five, six years displaced, just drifting in between, resenting my family though it isn’t their fault, resenting my house though it isn’t their fault either, not really, just some nasty side-effect of this melting pot of teenage insecurity. I’ve denied so much of myself and it disgusts me.”

And the problem was, Keith could’ve been content with the notion of Lance’s incompetence. He could take Lance’s well-meaning attempts and let what could have been between them drop silently, carrying on with a pleasant enough opinion on the other boy. Just accepted that he was too unpredictable and dangerous for Keith to ever befriend.

But Lance wasn’t someone he could just forget about.

“You’re still different, though,” said Keith, in an outburst. Everything seemed so _simple_ now, like the layers and layers had fallen away and life was revealing itself to him. If only for a moment.

“What do you mean?”

“Well. Sorry, I don’t think that’s what you want to hear. But like, I always thought you were a little more interesting than the other Slytherins, and not just ‘cos of Quidditch. I see it whenever you talk, when you get ahead of yourself. I don’t know.”

“Oh.” Lance drew his knees into his chest, balancing his tea against his chin. “Bad acting, then. I’d say my superobjective is to fit in. In some moments, my objectives are defence or denial or whatever. And sometimes they manifest by being a fucking dickhead.”

“All the world’s a stage,” Keith said, smiling ever-so-slightly.

In turn, Lance fixed him with an even, intense stare. “Not with you.”

Keith’s breath caught in his throat. _Oh_.

“I’m sorry, Keith. I am so sorry. I was cruel and caught up in myself, and I’ve just been…just been completely useless ever since. It wasn’t you, I hope you realise now that you didn’t do anything wrong. It was me and my fucked up defence systems and insecurities. And it’s okay if you don’t forgive me, because I know that objectives and true intentions and all that shit never excuse the actions.”

“It wasn’t you,” Keith said, with a soft realisation. Lance shook his head. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

Keith smothered a smile with his hand. “I’m not angry anymore, either way. So, thank you for apologising. And explaining, and stuff.”

Lance looked utterly shocked at the notion. “You’re not angry anymore?”

“It wears off,” Keith said.

“You can be, you know, if you need to be. If you want to, like, yell at me some more, that’s fine,” Lance replied.

“I know.”

A smile was growing on his face, and it was the first _real_ smile all evening, which had Keith’s chest flutter a little bit. “I’m really sorry,” he said, knocking his knee gently against Keith’s side. Keith fixed his gaze on their legs, unwinding his own so they could both dangle them over the edge. “I really like spending time with you, and stuff. I’d like to be friends. I just got scared and lashed out, and that was shitty of me.”

“It was pretty shitty of you, yeah.”

“I shouldn’t have invaded your privacy, either. I’ll speak to James first thing before breakfast. I don’t think he’ll tell anyone else, he’s not as nasty as he comes across, but I think he’s scared of me kicking him out the team. I’ll make sure nothing spreads about you. Like, your mum, and, uh, your gayness. Your alleged gayness. Um…” Lance scratched his neck. “I’ll be a better person. I promise.”

Keith closed his eyes, letting the paranoia electrifying him trickle out. He felt utterly exhausted, but the night felt so beautiful still, and he couldn’t help but think this was where he was meant to be.

Why? Why did Lance feel inevitable? 

“My mum comes and goes, as I think you figured out. She’s part of the Blade of Marmora, who resist the rising of dark magic in the ancient wizarding communities. Which is how Kosmo came to be, a rescue from animal abuse in my own family, which is ridiculous. And I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it’s just so hard to keep secrets all the time.”

Despite all evidence, what magic in the air made him _trust_ this boy so unflinchingly?

“Yeah, it is,” said Lance, his eyes soft and just so…so enthralling in the twinkling light.

Keith smiled. “I admire her beyond words. But I miss her, sometimes. My dad; he was a Muggle, but I never knew him well; died in an accident and ever since she’s just become more and more distant.”

“Oh,” Lance murmured, achingly gentle. “She sounds brave. They both sound brave.”

“Although we could all do with a little less of that bravery. Might keep us from being so flighty.”

“Keith. I’m sorry.” There was a simple remorse in his tone. It was an automatic phrase, one Keith had heard numerous times at funerals or when shaken aware by a stealthily departing mother. But for all his fumbling, there was something genuine in the words. “I like how brave you are, though.”

“But I’m lonely.”

“Me too.”

Finally, Keith picked up the mug still waiting beside him, and wrapped his freezing hands around the ceramic. It was painted a jaunty yellow, with a little cartoon bear peeping out between his fingers, and the childishness made him nostalgic for something not quite there.

“Do you want to go to Ryan’s seventeenth with me?” Lance asked tentatively, and Keith began to read the subtext. _I’m not ashamed of you and I’ll prove it_. Just like the tea and the astronomy tower and the singing, it was Lance’s many layered and drawn out and ridiculous apology. An open hand, an offering for a new beginning.

He was getting the hang of this.

“Yes, I’d like that,” Keith said, sipping his tea. “Oh, this is still hot.”

Lance cupped his own face with his hands and beamed. “Yeah. I charmed it especially.”

And that night, nothing was mended, not really. It was hard to bridge the gap, but they soldiered on with a valiant curiosity, an intrigue towards the other that they couldn’t make sense of, not yet. Still, Keith had this lingering sense that life was _good_ , or at least a little more worth it, if only to sit below the glorious sky.

Together, the two of them watched the stars. 

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! i hope you liked it, kudos and feedback are greatly appreciated.
> 
> i've just made[my writing tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/egoismandtea)!!! it's a mess right now but check it out, i'll be adding a preview of the next chapter and some little doodles i've done for this au shortly :)))) so keep an eye out, and i'd love to get to know you all <3

**Author's Note:**

> i really recommend you listen to dont delete the kisses by wolf alice. it's my favourite ever love song, which is saying a lot.
> 
> thank you so much for reading! i hope you liked it, feedback and kudos are greatly appreciated :) happy new year!


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